


letting me in or letting me go

by gsparkle



Series: i need a drink and a quick decision [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Private Investigators, Corporate Espionage, F/M, Marvel 616 References, Mystery, Red Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 15:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5169491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/pseuds/gsparkle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanoff has worked hard to become a successful member of SHIELD Investigations, and her hard work pays off when she lands a major job investigating corporate espionage at Stark Industries with Clint Barton and his apprentice, Kate. Working with other people isn't Natasha's forte, and she has her reasons for preferring to work alone; but Clint is charming and Kate is irrepressible, and soon Natasha finds herself wrapped up in a case that could prove to shake the skeletons out of her closet and upend everything, including the friendship (or more?) that's started to develop between her and Clint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2015 Romanoff Big Bang challenge! I had so much fun writing this, and am also thrilled to share some awesome art that goes with this story! You can check out the incredible work by koreanrage [here](http://koreanrage.tumblr.com/post/132806770055/art-to-letting-me-in-or-letting-me-go-by) and by brightestcrayonsart [here!](http://brightestcrayonsart.tumblr.com/post/132871102718/this-is-probably-unprofessional-my-contribution)
> 
> The title is from the Hall & Oates song "Private Eyes," which was 100% the inspiration and working title for this story despite the fact, as Natasha points out, that this song has literally nothing to do with private investigators.
> 
> As always, I have to thank santiagoinbflat, who is the very best in every single way <3

There were lots of good things about being a private investigator: working whatever hours you wanted, indulging the overly nosy aspect of human nature, having reason to purchase fantastic trench coats. Natasha tried to remind herself of all of these perks of the job as she huddled in her car, watching for a glimpse of a red sedan. It was a cold and rainy fall night, and she wanted nothing more than to be curled up in bed with a cup of tea and a paperback novel. Instead, she was parked outside the drab Kirby Motel with a gone-cold cup of coffee and an expensive camera, waiting with growing impatience for a car that might not even show up.

After a week of investigation, Natasha was 99% sure that she’d found the hotel where Hank Pym was meeting his mistress to conduct his affair. “99% sure,” however, was not enough evidence to turn over to Pym’s wife, popular fashion designer Janet van Dyne. She needed hard evidence, and hoped that Pym would be obliging enough to show up and immediately jump on his lady love in the parking lot so Natasha could get her picture and head home. Maybe he’d even be wearing a shirt that shouted “I’m a Cheating Douche!” just to really nail the case shut.

Objectively, Natasha didn’t _want_ Hank Pym to show up. Objectively, she would have preferred that Hank be at home with his wife, making her dinner and being generally faithful and loving. If it were up to her, nobody would cheat on their partners or skip out on loans or embezzle from small business owners. But it wasn’t up to her, and the reality was that people did shitty things and she might as well profit from it.

And speaking of people doing shitty things, Hank Pym's red sedan turned into the hotel parking lot and coasted to a stop under a sputtering streetlamp. Natasha snapped a few pictures of the scientist in profile as he stepped out of the car, evidently unbothered by the rain. _Well, you probably wouldn’t mind the rain, either, if you were about to get laid._ With the patience of a sniper, Natasha lined up her camera and waited for the money shot. There was nothing furtive about his movements as he locked the car and crossed the sidewalk to room 7 and knocked: he had no apparent concerns about being caught. He was even whistling. _More fool you, buddy._ The door swung open to reveal a woman in a garish tiger-striped dress, and Natasha’s fingers clicked the shutter button on her camera before her eyes had fully processed the scene. Tiger Lady grabbed Pym and hauled his mouth to hers, providing a convenient opportunity for a few very damning photos before they disappeared into the room.

It was these photos that Natasha slid across her desk in a discreet manila envelope the next day. “I’m sorry, Ms. van Dyne,” she said as the fashionably dressed woman on the other side of the desk peered into the envelope and sighed a little. “It appears your suspicions about your husband were correct.” This was the worst part of the job: confirming suspicions, disappointing hopes and breaking hearts. Natasha always tried to remain dispassionate and professional when delivering bad news, because she knew that sympathy sometimes stung the most. That, and a cool facade usually dissuaded people from flying off the handle right there in her office.

Depressingly, Janet van Dyne didn't seem all that surprised by the images she briefly glanced at. “I can’t quite say it’s all right,” she said with a waspish smile, “but this will certainly interest the divorce attorney I need to go call.” She swept the envelope into her oversized handbag and stood abruptly, propelling Natasha out of her chair so she could shake her client’s hand. “Thank you, Ms. Romanoff. If you ever need a wedding dress”--the twist of her lips made it clear that the irony of this statement was not lost on her--“be sure to give me a call.”

“Wedding dress, huh?” Not a full minute after Janet had departed, Maria Hill was leaning against Natasha’s office door with a cup of coffee and raised brows. “Something you want to share, Romanoff?” Natasha saw no point in dignifying this with a response, and Maria didn’t wait for one before dropping into Janet’s recently vacated chair. “We’ve got a meeting with Fury in ten minutes. New client, big deal.”

“Your kind of big deal, or mine?” Natasha asked as she filled in Janet van Dyne’s invoice. It was rare for them to work together, or to even be assigned the same kinds of cases. Maria was built like an Amazon, tall and toned with black hair and sharp blue eyes. Her height lent her the speed needed to serve subpoenas and chase down bail jumpers and fugitives; she was functionally a bounty hunter, and a damn good one at that. Natasha had speed and strength, too, but her real area of expertise was people. Maria was plenty discreet, and could lie quickly enough, but never with the ease with which Natasha spun tales and extracted information. She lied shamelessly, sometimes just for the fun of it, and could play the stammering wallflower just as easily as the seductive vamp. Because of these abilities, Natasha tended to work the jobs that leaned towards manipulation, deceit, and human emotion: drawing cheating spouses into compromising situations, tricking brash cashiers into bragging about the money they skimmed from the register.

Maria shrugged and sipped her coffee. “No idea. Hope it’s yours; apparently everybody and their mother are skipping their court dates this month. If I have to track down Carl Creel _again_ …” Natasha dunked a biscotti in her coffee and did some internet legwork on various cases, half-listening as Maria detailed the saga of Carl Creel, chronic bail skipper. She knew Maria well enough to catch the rise and fall of the story without paying much attention; they’d been swapping tales for years.

Back when Natasha had been Natalia Romanova, the best grifter in the local Russian street gang, Lieutenant Maria Hill had been the only police officer capable of repeatedly tracking down and arresting her. It had been utterly infuriating to be thwarted time and time again, especially considering that the Red Room did not suffer disappointments well; yet somehow they’d struck up an odd friendship, probably based on the fact that Natasha found herself in the back of Maria’s squad car at least once a month. When Natasha heard through the grapevine that Captain Fury had left for the private sector and recruited Maria to come along, she’d felt a spark of disappointment: she _liked_ outsmarting the uptight officer and needling the woman about her complete lack of work-life balance.

Maria had been the first person to ever suggest that there could more to her life than grifting, which Natasha had dismissed as preachy law enforcement talk until Maria had shown up at Natasha’s apartment with not an arrest warrant but a job offer. “You’re talented, Natalia,” Maria had admitted, blunt and forthright as always, “talented and quick. Nick Fury can make you better.” Natasha had scoffed and tried to shut the door, but Maria had shoved the toe of her boot in the way. “Come on, we both know how shitty the Red Room is. Don’t you want to try to live an honest life before you lose your soul to these guys?” Natasha never quite worked out how Maria knew that she wanted out of the gang and into a normal life, a regular job and an apartment not surveilled by track-suited thugs; but the _how_ didn’t really matter, did it? All that mattered was that, by the end of the week, Fury had pulled some strings and Natalia Romanova had become Natasha Romanoff, investigator in training at SHIELD Investigations.

Now, three years later, Maria cut her story short with a glance at her watch. “Oh, shit, it’s meeting time. Let’s go, Red.” She rose from her chair and strode out of Natasha’s office for her own. The three offices that surrounded the common area of SHIELD Investigations were walled with glass, so Natasha waited until she saw Maria exit her office with a small notebook in hand before joining the other woman in her walk to Fury’s back office.

Nick Fury was an intimidating man, not too tall or too large, but with a commanding presence that had inspired fierce loyalty in the men and women who served under him on the force. He seemed like he would have been at home captaining a pirate ship, and not just because of the black eyepatch he wore over his scarred left eye: his permanent scowl and overall dry demeanor seemed to be underlaid with a current of mischief, as if he’d be just as successful on the other side of the law. Today Fury had his feet kicked up on his desk, one hand absently rubbing his bald head as he wrapped up a phone conversation.

“Absolutely,” he said into the receiver nestled between his ear and shoulder. He had on his polite voice that Natasha thought made him sound a bit like a preacher. “She’ll be over this afternoon. Uh huh. Uh huh. You, too.” He dropped the phone into its cradle and motioned Natasha and Maria into the molded plastic chairs that sat across from his desk. The charming phone voice was absent as he shoved a stack of files over towards Maria and addressed his employees without preamble. “Hill, you’ve got some runners. Cal Johnson for possession and Carl Creel for assault.” He ignored Maria’s groan and turned to Natasha. “Romanoff, got a big one for you. That was the CEO of Stark Industries on the phone.”

“Pepper Potts?” Natasha blurted. Even Maria looked up from her files with interest. Pepper Potts was the rapidly rising star of the clean energy market. After years working as the long-suffering assistant to Tony Stark, previous CEO and son of the Stark empire’s founder, she’d recently been handed the reins to the company and had quickly improved it by leaps and bounds. Stock prices were at an all-time high as they rode the clean energy trend that was sweeping the nation. “Big deal” was the understatement of the month, but Fury’s sense of humor tended to run in that direction.

“The very one,” Fury confirmed. His scowl flipped into a grin that was no less intense. “Seems they’ve got some sort of security leak, and she wants you to figure out who it is before it gets out of hand. You’ve got a meeting with her at 3:00.”

“Me?” Her voice hadn’t squeaked so much since she was twelve, grifting for the first time on a busy Brooklyn street. She was similarly nervous now, and scraped her sweating palms across her knees as she cleared her throat. “Why aren’t you taking this one?” It wasn’t that Natasha was unconfident in her abilities. She was a trained con artist, and _con_ was, after all, an abbreviation of _confidence._ She knew she was good at all aspects of her job: a thorough detective, a reliable employee, a convincing actress. At the same time, Fury usually took the high-profile jobs, either because he was requested or because he wanted to keep his employees from becoming too recognizable and, thus, ineffective. Natasha had replaced another investigator Fury had brought from the police force, Phil Coulson, who had been fantastically effective until he’d become too well known; he now lived in permanent hiding in Tahiti (which, in Natasha's opinion, was really not so terrible a fate). If she messed this case up, she was going down hard, and SHIELD Investigations might just fall with her.

Fury chuckled and shook his head, perhaps asking himself the same question. “I offered, but Ms. Potts specifically asked for you. She got your card from…” He looked down at the notes jotted on the yellow legal pad on his desk. “Jane Foster. Friend of hers, some scientist?”

Natasha felt a smile pull up the corners of her lips. Jane Foster, a tiny astrophysicist that was more blur of movement than actual person, had brought Natasha one of her favorite cases. Foster had been concerned that her brassy intern was acting strangely, so had asked Natasha to tail the girl and make sure she wasn’t in trouble. As it turned out, all the intern was involved in was helping Foster’s boyfriend plan an elaborate marriage proposal that had made even Natasha, an avowed cynic, wipe away a tear or two. “I remember her,” she confirmed with a nod.

“Good. If you leave now, you’ll get to Stark Tower in plenty of time.” Fury looked down at his watch, then back at Natasha. She hoped she didn’t look quite as shaky as she felt, but she must have, because he watched her for a few seconds before saying, “You’re a good detective, Natasha. You’ll be fine.” For Fury, this was the equivalent of a rallying speech and supportive hug. This plus an under-the-table thumbs up from Maria heartened Natasha a little, and she scooted her chair back to leave. She had her hand on the doorknob when Fury called, “Oh, and Romanoff?”

She turned her head. “Sir?”

He flashed the most assholish grin he had. “Don’t fuck this up.”


	2. Chapter 2

Manhattan traffic was a shitshow all day, every day, so Natasha caught the subway to Grand Central Station, which was only a short walk from the Stark Tower entrance. She was grateful that she’d dressed professionally to meet with Janet earlier that day; otherwise, she’d be in her usual work uniform of jeans, scuffed boots, and a thick sweater. Today her heels clicked across the quartzite floors of the lobby, and once her visitor’s badge was in place, she used the shining walls of the elevator to make sure that her pencil skirt was straight and that her blouse wasn’t misbuttoned. When the doors opened at the 65th floor, she took a deep breath, tucked an errant curl of red hair behind her ear, and stepped out with a confident smile.

The view from the reception area was fantastic. Natasha scanned the skyline, picking out the birds swooping on the currents that swirled around the skyscrapers. It had been a game she and her guardian Ivan had played when she was young-- _How many birds, Natalia? Yes, I see fifteen, too; good girl, now tell me their colors_ \--counting birds and animals in the park, then counting purses in the crowd, then only the purses that were unzipped, then just those with wallets sticking out of them, then--

“Ms. Romanoff?” Natasha whipped around from the window and found a blazered intern waiting for her. “Ms. Potts is ready for you.”

“Yes. Right.” _Leave the past where it belongs, Natasha._ She smoothed her skirt and followed the intern down a short hallway that ended in two large frosted glass doors, currently propped open. The office that lay past them was large and somewhat austere, the only warmth coming from the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the wall of plate glass that dominated the room. There wasn’t much in terms of furniture, just a glass-topped chrome desk with two wheeled guest chairs in front of it and a chaise angled towards an enormous flat-screened television. The only color in the room came from the genuine Jackson Pollock painting that hung along one grey wall, and a prickle of awareness tripped down Natasha’s spine as she recognized its multi-million dollar value.

A discreet cough made her realize that she’d been staring at the painting for a hair too long. When she turned, the intern had vanished and Pepper Potts was standing in front of her desk with a patient smile. “Pollock is one of my favorites,” Natasha said as she quickly stepped away from the painting and offered her hand. “Natasha Romanoff. I’m with SHIELD.”

“Pepper Potts. Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice.” Her handshake was firm and brisk, indicative of either formal etiquette training in childhood or a need to establish herself as a hard hitter in a male-dominated field. Natasha suspected a bit of both. She could feel the CEO sweep an assessing gaze over her as they seated themselves in the chairs in front of the desk, and conducted an inventory of her own through her eyelashes. Pepper Potts was a tall, slim woman, made taller and slimmer by her red-soled heels and expertly tailored dove grey suit. She had freckles, keen blue eyes, and strawberry blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, the combination of which made her seem youthful and unassuming. Natasha had seen the press conferences, though, and she knew that one did not become the CEO of such a major enterprise without a backbone of pure steel. She imagined that many a corporate bigwig had been lulled into complacency by Potts’ appearance, then mercilessly steamrolled.

“We might as well get down to it,” the other woman said after a moment, scooping a tablet off her desk and handing it to Natasha. Sales charts and tables scrolled by under her fingers as Pepper spoke. “In late August, we had a complete server overhaul to meet the needs of our growing customer base. Since then I’ve noticed… _irregularities,_ I guess is the right word. The R &D Department would report that some desks were found slightly out of order, or a few weekly sales numbers seemed off. I spoke to Tony about it, although I don’t know why, since the only ‘problems’ he wants to talk about are things that are actually on fire.” She shook her head a little and huffed an irritated sigh through her nose, making her bangs flutter. “I decided not to worry about it. I didn’t want my tenure as CEO to be shrouded with Fox News accusations of paranoia and female hysteria. Then this announcement came out.”

Pepper unfolded a newspaper dated two weeks earlier. On the front page was a color photo of the CEO of Hammer Industries, a major weapons manufacturer, as well as a bold headline stating that the company was working on a new line of weapons that was going to completely revolutionize the American military. “This is Justin Hammer, the CEO of Hammer Industries.” She hesitated, then added, “He’s… a bit of a jerk.”

Natasha thought he looked like the kind of smarmy jackass who dealt under the table and spray tanned daily, but only said diplomatically, “I can certainly see where you’d get that from.” She looked down at the newspaper, then back at Pepper. “I’m not sure I understand what Hammer International has to do with Stark Industries.”

Pepper’s lips flattened into a line so thin they nearly disappeared. “This new line of weapons they’re planning? It’s using our arc reactor technology. He didn’t name us in the press conference, but the technology he’s talking about is some stuff we’ve been working on for a year, maybe more. Hammer Industries frankly isn’t good enough to be working at the level they claim to be at, and these power sources that they’ve gotten their hands on were _never_ meant to be used to power weapons.” She closed her eyes and pushed at her temples. “There’s still some time before they go fully public with what they’re working on. I need to know which of my employees are working for Hammer, and I need to get that data back in our hands before it’s too late. It would be one thing if it were just my job at stake, but I--Stark Industries has come a long way from the war mongering company it was in its infancy, and I’m not going to let it get dragged back down. We do not and _will_ not make weapons, ever again.” She opened her eyes again and pinned Natasha with a surprisingly vulnerable stare. “Will you help me, Ms. Romanoff? I can’t let this material remain in the wrong hands.”

Natasha pursed her lips and thought. Pepper Potts wasn’t nearly the shark she’d expected her to be, and it made her like the woman more. This was a problem. She tried not to like her clients because it wreaked havoc on her objectivity. Being a private investigator was about solving puzzles and serving justice; becoming emotionally invested led to feelings of loss or disappointment that had no business existing. In her line of work, nearly everyone was disappointed at the information she produced, and empathizing with this charismatic CEO was a recipe for disaster.

She knew Fury would be, well, furious if she walked away from this job, but she still had to ask: “Ms. Potts, this investigation means that absolutely anyone in this company could be working for Hammer. Are you prepared for the realities of that possibility?” What she had really meant was, _what will you do if your security leak is Tony Stark?_ and she could see a flash in Pepper’s eyes that meant she had understood.

“While I am positive that Tony would _never_ …” She trailed off for a moment in consideration before refocusing on Natasha. “I’d still prosecute, of course, but leaving the weapons industry was his idea in the first place. Sure, he’s capricious and eccentric, but--”

The doors to the office banged open and the man in question strode in. “Potts! Stop everything, I have a solution to all our problems.”

Pepper flapped her hand at Natasha in a way that said, _you see what I have to deal with?_ “Tony,” she said, rising smoothly from her chair, “You may have noticed that I’m in a meeting. This is Natasha Romanoff, and she--”

“Yeah, hi,” he said to Natasha, not even looking at her. “I don’t care, Pep, this is more important. I think we should investigate this leak before Hammer does his display. If we beat them to the punch then we’ll have Hammer over a barrel _and_ we’ll have our tech back. I’ve already hired an investigator--” He gestured back towards the door where a sandy haired man awkwardly waved.

“Tony,” Pepper said. He didn’t seem to notice the dangerously slow cadence of her voice, or the way she was advancing on him like a tiger preparing to strike. “It may shock you to learn that, as CEO, this idea has already occurred to me, and that I in fact am in the process of hiring an investigator right now.” Tony looked confused until Pepper tilted her head towards Natasha, who wasn’t sure if it was best to smile or wave, so instead did neither.

“Oh.” Tony rocked back on his heels for a second. “But we don’t need her. I’ve got this guy, his name’s Barton, and he’s great. Not that you’re not,” he added to Natasha, “I’m sure you’re terrific, but we’ve got this locked down, so sorry for your trouble and all that.”

Pepper’s eyes narrowed and this time even Tony took a step back. “Ms. Romanoff, Mr. Barton,” she said, her slanted gaze not straying from Tony’s, “Would you leave us alone for a minute, please?” She didn’t look to see if they complied, but Natasha booked it all the same. She could just hear the beginnings of, “How _dare_ you--” as the glass doors swished shut behind her.

_Well, at least there’s that answered._ It could be a ploy, but realistically, hiring an investigator on his own was a pretty clear sign that Tony Stark was innocent in this affair. Natasha followed this second investigator to the waiting area, studying him as she did so. “Barton,” as Stark had referred to him, was of average height and wiry build, with sandy blond hair that was a week away from shagging down over his ears. He moved with a sort of avian grace, as if he could leap into dance or flight at any given moment. When he reached the waiting area, he bent his head to speak to a woman who seemed much too young to be his girlfriend, with straight black hair and an aura of wealthy rebellion. _Sister, maybe?_ But Barton seemed too scruffy to be related to this clearly well-heeled girl.

“I told you this was stupid,” the girl sing-songed as Natasha approached. “Pepper Potts isn’t going to hire some random PI from Brooklyn just because Tony Stark says so.”

“I know, okay?” Barton said irritably. “I know. You don’t have to tell me.” He turned as Natasha finally drew even with them and offered his hand. “Hi. Clint Barton. Sorry about that whole thing. Tony gets a little… impetuous.” Clint Barton’s eyes could have been blue or grey depending on the light; they reminded Natasha of the lake in Central Park, at turns placid or stormy. He had a slightly crooked nose that had once, before being broken and reset, been straight, and an easygoing smile that made her want to smile back. “I’m sure it’ll all work out fine.”

“I’m sure it will,” Natasha blandly agreed as a heavy feeling dropped into her stomach. If Clint was on first-name basis with Tony Stark, there was no way she was getting this job. She shook the offered hand and hoped Fury wouldn’t blame her for the loss of contract. “Natasha Romanoff, SHIELD Investigations. How do you know Tony?”

The girl on the couch beat Clint to answering. “They’re lovers,” she announced as she pushed herself into a standing position. She was half a head shorter than Clint, wearing jeans, a purple plaid flannel shirt, and a mischievous grin. “Deeply committed to each other in both heart and soul.”

Clint looked pained. “We are _not,_ ” he said emphatically, “lovers. Tony and I went to MIT together. I studied theater,” he added sheepishly for Natasha’s benefit.

“That doesn’t _exclude_ the possibility of you being lovers--”

“This is Kate Bishop,” Clint loudly interrupted. “She’s twelve years old and a pain in the ass.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Kate informed Natasha as they shook hands. She noticed that the girl didn’t contest the second accusation. “I’m Clint’s apprentice. They’re not really lovers; Tony’s been in love with Pepper for years.”

Natasha wasn’t used to this kind of back-and-forth squabbling: Maria and Fury were both more of the strong and silent type. She had never had a sibling, and found herself oddly envious of the big brother-little sister vibe the pair gave off. “Couldn’t Tony be in love with Pepper _and_ Clint?” she put forth quietly, unsure if she was crossing a line; she _had,_ after all, just met these people. “One doesn’t have to exclude the other.”

Clint broke off in the middle of telling Kate that he had told her that _in confidence_ to gape at Natasha in betrayal. “I like her,” Kate announced to her mentor.

“That’s good,” came Pepper’s voice from behind them. The trio turned as one to look at her, and she pinched the bridge of her nose before continuing, “because Tony and I have reached a compromise, and we’re going to be employing all three of you.”


	3. Chapter 3

“All _three_ of you?” Maria hadn’t interrupted as Natasha told the story of her day, but now she set her beer down with a clatter, causing the golden liquid in the mug to slosh dangerously close to the rim. “How the fuck is that going to work?”

Natasha balanced her forehead on her empty pint glass and sighed. “I don’t know,” she said glumly. “We’re meeting at his office tomorrow to figure it out. And technically it’s just two and a half. Kate’s an apprentice.” She’d thought she was okay with the arrangement, and seeing as how her options had been collaboration or nothing, she’d smiled and said “no problem.” Now that she was repeating the events to Maria, though, she realized that there _was_ a problem. Natasha Romanoff lived a solitary life with a solitary job for a reason: she did not play well with others. Her history always felt too heavy to share with anyone other than Maria and Fury, and it just seemed easier to keep to herself rather than come up with a watered down persona to share with with world. Plus, when she worked alone, there was no one to badger her about why she had no formal education, or second guess her more impulsive risks. She pulled out the business card Barton had given her and slid it across the table. “Have you ever heard of this guy? Clint Barton?”

Maria took the card and peered at it. There was a matte purple arrow stretched along the bottom of its front, which merely read, “Clint Barton, Private Investigator.” The back listed a phone number and an address in Bedford-Stuyvesant. “Never heard of him,” Maria said with a shake of her head. She tapped the card against her lips as she thought. “I’ll ask some of my old contacts in the Brooklyn precincts. Diaz might know him.” She sipped her beer, then asked, “Is he cute?”

“I didn’t notice,” Natasha lied breezily. Maria was her best (and only) friend, but if she started talking about the dimple in Clint’s boyish smile or the way his eyes were framed with laugh lines, Maria would start talking about Getting Out More and trying to convince her to go on a date. Which, Natasha felt it important to note, would be extremely hypocritical, since Maria had no life to speak of.

Maria looked unimpressed. “Sure you didn’t.” She drained her beer and slapped some cash onto the bar. “I’m out. C’mon, I’ll drop you off; you need some beauty sleep if you’re going on a date tomorrow.”

“I hate you,” Natasha said as she signed her tab and pushed off her barstool. “Tomorrow I’ll tell you how professional our meeting was and you’ll feel like a jerk.”

Maria smirked. “Doubt it.”

 

The next morning, after a convoluted subway ride from her place in East Village down to Bed-Stuy, Natasha was starting to think that Maria might have been right. She stood outside the address on Clint’s business card, sighed, then flipped the card over and dialed the number on the back.

“Barton,” she said, pulling a veneer of patience over the growl threatening to escape her throat, “Why does the address on your business card lead me to a tenement building?”

He sounded as if he had his face squashed into a pillow. “Um. Because I live there?” She heard a rustle of blankets. “Wait. Shit. What time is it?”

Natasha suppressed another sigh. “9:15.”

“Ah, shit.” She heard him smother a yawn. “Shit, okay, come on up. Top floor, apartment H. No elevator, sorry.” He clicked off before she could say anything else, which was just as well, since she had nothing polite to add. Instead, Natasha listed all of the uncharitable things she could think of under her breath as she hiked up the six flights of stairs and located apartment H. She could hear scrabbling and barking behind the door as she knocked, followed by Clint’s muffled voice. “Lucky, _move_ \--”

When the door pulled open, there was a dog of indeterminate heritage sitting in the doorway, tail thumping against the floor as it happily chewed on a slice of cold pizza. A circle of pepperoni fell to the floor, and Natasha’s eyes followed it down before tracking over to Clint’s bare feet, up the low slung jeans and bullseye boxers that peeked over the waistband, and-- _oh._ The dog and the pizza had completely distracted her from the fact that, in his haste to get to the door, Clint had neglected to put on a shirt. She hadn’t put any thought into what he’d look like without a shirt, because she was _trying_ to be _professional,_ but she certainly wouldn’t have expected tanned skin or defined abs or an arrow tattooed along the inside of his left bicep.

“I didn’t realize that you”-- _were built like the fucking statue of David_ \--“worked out of your apartment.” She avoided his gaze and crouched down to pet the dog, who drooled appreciatively onto her leather jacket.

Clint grinned. “That’s Lucky. He also answers to Pizza Dog.” He stepped back and held the door open. “And yeah, I usually go to my clients, so I never saw the need for an office. Come on in, I’ll make some coffee.” He padded away from the door and Natasha straightened and followed, stepping over the dog that was now trying to circle her feet. His apartment was two stories high and open to the rafters, and sunlight filtered in through a row of tall windows set into the exposed brick wall. The place was minimally furnished, with two stools slid under the bar that separated the kitchen from the couches and television in the living area. A small bathroom was tucked under the stairs that led to an open second floor loft.

Her eyes were drawn to the polished wood recurve bow that hung prominently above the TV. Most of the items and furniture in the apartment were in some stage of disrepair, but the bow looked like it received regular use and upkeep. _Live action role player, or just really into the Lord of the Rings?_ She didn’t know which option was worse. Natasha circled back to the kitchen and pulled out a barstool as Clint poured coffee into two MIT mugs. “So,” she said after they’d sipped their coffee in silence for a few minutes, “MIT. How exactly does one major in the arts at the country’s most notable school for science and technology?”

His cup of coffee hid most of his smile, but she could still see it edging around the rim. “This is going to sound like bullshit, but I promise you, I really was this stupid. I thought it was the Massachusetts Institute of Theater. No, really,” he said against Natasha’s skeptical eye roll. “Look, okay, it was my brother’s idea. We grew up in the circus, right, and that’s fine when you’re two punk kids from Iowa with jackshit goin’ for them. I was thirteen, with my own act, havin’ the time of my life, but Barney turns eighteen and realizes there’s not much out there for a guy with no GED. So he enrolls me in high school and tells me I’m going to college whether I want to or not. I’m pretty sure he forged about half of my applications.” He shook his head ruefully. “I signed off on this one because he told me it was a theater school. I think he was hoping that once I got there I’d fall in love with engineering or biochemistry or something. I don’t think he realized there even _was_ an arts program there.”

Natasha turned this information over in her head. She already felt a dangerous affinity for this man, and learning that they had similarly unusual childhoods only bolstered that. She’d last dated a guy for six months and had never during that relationship felt the urge, as she did right now, to blurt out a patchwork history of short cons and tall tales and the Red Room’s enduring punishments. A sip of coffee did nothing to wash away that temptation, and she was trying very hard to keep her mouth shut when the door slammed open to reveal Kate triumphantly brandishing a white bag of pastries.

“Doughnuts!” Kate announced, bending to scratch behind Lucky’s ears and holding the bag away from his investigative sniffing. “They’re fresh out of the fryer; that’s why I’m so late.” She looked up at her mentor. _“Jesus_ , Clint, with the abs and everything?”

“Hm?” Clint looked down, as if realizing for the first time that he was missing half his wardrobe. “Oh. Right.” He shuffled away and up the stairs while Kate poured herself a cup of coffee and took his place leaning against the counter.

“Idiot,” she murmured, a hint of affection tinging her voice. “Can hit a target across a football field, but can’t dress himself.” She offered Natasha the doughnut bag before reaching into it herself, and they sat chewing in silence until Clint came hopping back down the stairs.

“I heard that,” he informed Kate, snatching her doughnut out of her hands and taking a large bite out of it.  He’d pulled on a black t-shirt, soft and faded from numerous washings. The sleeves didn’t completely cover the arrow on the inside of his upper arm. _That’s not distracting at all._

Natasha swallowed the last of her doughnut and wiped the glaze off her fingers. It was past due time to stop ogling and get to work, so before the other two could start sniping at each other about doughnut theft or whatever else, she suggested, “I have all the files that Pepper asked us to look through to start the investigation. Why don’t we each take a section and take some notes, look for suspects?” The pair readily agreed, and she handed each of them a thick stack of manila files from the bag she’d brought. Kate took over the entire kitchen island, so Clint took his stack up the stairs and Natasha claimed a couch, feeling ridiculously gratified when Lucky chose to curl up next to her as she read.

The details of running an international corporation were more than a little boring, and she was willing to bet that a quarter of the words were entirely made up, but after two hours Natasha felt that she had a good idea of the company’s hierarchy and who might benefit from betraying its trust. Clint soon came down the stairs soliciting lunch orders before hooking a leash to Lucky’s collar and disappearing down the hall. The pair returned fifteen minutes later with a fragrant bag of Chinese food that got doled out family-style before they started hashing out the case.

Stark Industries was a large company, so it made plenty of sense that the complaints folder compiled by HR was stuffed full of paper. “Most of them are run of the mill,” Clint explained, “harassment, hostile work environment, whatever. This guy is definitely weirder.” He juggled the folder as he tried to extract a corporate ID photo from it without setting down his eggroll. “John Morley. He’s a data engineer, so it’s no stretch for him to have access to information about the arc reactors, and he’s also been suspected of corporate espionage before, for Hammer, no less.”

“So why’s he in the HR files instead of the security ones?” Kate asked. Natasha was wondering the same thing.

Clint scarfed down the rest of his eggroll before pointing at his protégé. “Great question, Katie-Kate. Because he’s _creepy._ He managed to keep his hands clean in the espionage case due to his alleged hacking capabilities, so they couldn’t fire him. All the women in his department have reported getting weirdly specific spam emails after they talk to him, but again, no proof. Guy’s like a fucking ghost. The files say that HR is just waiting for him to slip up so they can fire him. Maybe he hacked in, saw that note, and is now on the offensive.”

It was an interesting theory: a low-level grunt, arrogant from his hacking ability and out to prove that he could ruin the company that dared to suspect him of his crimes. Add on his uncomfortable interactions with women and Natasha could see why he might think that a company led by Pepper Potts might be one he could conquer. Still, she’d spent the past two hours reviewing Stark International’s corporate structure and had some theories of her own.

“I definitely think we should consider Morley a suspect, but have you looked at what shook down when Tony boosted Pepper to CEO?” Natasha flipped open her folder to a pair of leadership flowcharts, displaying the chain of command before and after Pepper took over. The new CEO wasn’t even mentioned on the chart that had Tony’s name listed at the top of the food chain. “None of these old fogeys even saw her coming, and she climbed over all of them. Now they’re all sitting in their same old spots at the board room table with her at the head. No promotions, new leadership; hell, I’m sure this is the first time most of them have taken direction from a woman in their lives.”

Kate pulled the flowcharts closer and peered down at them. Tony had presided over seven vice presidents, each of whom had entire trees of officers and lieutenants scrolling down the page beneath them. “There’s, like, a million people on here. How are we going to narrow it down?”

Natasha’s red manicured nail circled the name of the Senior VP of Operations. “Smart money’s on Obadiah Stane. He’s been with Stark Industries since the 1960s, when the company bought out Stane Enterprises. He helped Howard Stark build the company, and I think he expected to be given the reins after Stark died. He got his own son a cushy executive job at the company, but I guess he didn’t expect Howard to indulge in the same level of nepotism. I can’t imagine he was thrilled to learn that he only had stewardship of the company until Tony finished school; and then, for this spoiled upstart of a kid to take the company he’d built and give it to his brainless assistant?” Natasha leaned back against the counter and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I think Stane’s our guy.”

Clint looked unconvinced. “I mean,” he hedged when Natasha pressed, “Look. I met the guy once when I visited Tony in Malibu over break once, and I’m not saying that it’s impossible, but I just don’t see it. Tony still calls him ‘Uncle Obie.’ They’re practically family.” He shook his head. “It would absolutely crush him if it turns out Stane is behind all this.”

Family didn’t mean jackshit to Natasha. Experience had taught her that men in power liked to maintain that power, that men who lost their power were dangerous and reckless and would do anything to get it back, regardless of family or affection. She’d called Ivan her uncle for many years, believing as children do that adults had her best interests at heart, that the fact that he made sure she was fed and dressed meant that he actually cared about her. It had taken her far too long to realize that the family she’d believed in, her “brothers and sisters” of the Red Room and her uncle Ivan protecting them all, had been a carefully crafted illusion designed by Ivan to keep her lining his gang’s pockets. She felt too well-acquainted with the realities of the world to believe that Obadiah Stane would behave differently.

“He’s still a good suspect,” Natasha argued, adding, “And so is every other vice president that probably feels anywhere from slighted to extremely insulted that they’re not in Pepper’s chair right now.” Clint looked vaguely mutinous, but she could tell from the irritated way that he crossed his arms that he knew she was right. She turned to Kate instead. “Find anything interesting?”

Kate fanned a stack of photos in front of her like a poker hand. “Pick an ex, any ex,” she announced. She tapped at the corner of each picture in turn as she spoke. “Janice Cord: Tony dumped her when he discovered that her dad was an exec over at AIM. Brie Daniels: mad that she lost her access to fame and fortune when Tony figured out she was a gold digger. Whitney Frost: unspecified but apparently very deep animosity. Rumiko Fujikawa: dated Tony while he negotiated some sort of merger with her father’s company, and claims he gave said company a raw deal when he bought their conglomerate a few years ago.”

Clint started and and pushed off the stool he’d been sulking on. “Whitney Frost?” He tugged the picture out of Kate’s hand and stared at it, holding it up to the light to better see the woman’s long black hair and hard grey eyes. A burn scar bisected the left side of her face. “I remember this one. What’s her deal?”

Looking annoyed at being interrupted, Kate squinted down at her list. “There’s not a lot about her, actually, aside from the fact that she and Stark now venomously hate each other. So much so that she’s the only one of all these women who has a ‘Do Not Admit’ security flag.” The girl raised her eyes back to Clint’s, a question reflecting in her gaze. “Do you remember anything else?”

It was a couple of seconds before Clint answered, one finger pushing at the bend in his nose as he thought. “Something went down between the two of them. She used to be around all the time, and then one day she dropped off the face of the earth and Tony refused to say anything about it.” He rapped the edge of the photo against the counter. “And she didn’t have that scar, either.”

“You think that might have something to do with them falling out?” Natasha asked when Clint fell silent again.

He shrugged. “Maybe.” There was still a thoughtful tension in his shoulders, but he didn’t seem ready to say anything else, and Natasha resolved to let it rest for the time being. Sometimes good detective work required patiently waiting for a gut feeling to manifest itself into something expressible and useful.

“Let’s talk about our attack plan,” she offered, changing tacks. “How do you want to go in?” Natasha’s expertise was infiltration all the way, and she was doubtful that he’d talk her out of it, but for the sake of the partnership she figured it wouldn’t hurt to consider another avenue.

Clint scratched at the back of his head. “I don’t think a full court press is going to do us much good here,” he admitted, unaware of the fact that his sleeve had pulled up and Natasha was again struggling not to stare at the arrow inked inside his arm. “These corporate types lie for a living: they’re only going to tell us what we want to hear. I think one of us should conduct interviews, you know, run a regular and highly visible investigation, and one of us should be on the inside, maybe posing as Pepper’s assistant. She’s only been CEO for a month, so it would make sense that she’d need a gofer to ease the transition.”

It was always nice to find that someone was on the exact same page that she was. “I think you should do the interviews,” she said in agreement. “They’ll respond better to you, especially if you play up the idea that Pepper’s just making a big deal out of nothing. Play up the good-ol-boys aspect and they’ll tell you pretty much anything. Meanwhile, I’ll become a presence in the office and board meetings and see what I can pick up. It’s amazing the kind of stuff people will say in front of the help.”

Clint was nodding, a grin spreading across his face, and Natasha fought the blush she felt blooming in her cheeks. _This is a professional meeting. He is not that cute. Get it together._ He really was cute, though, and smart, and Natasha was forgetting why, exactly, she tended to work alone.

Kate cut into her thoughts. “What about me?” she asked, blue eyes big in indignation. “How come I’m not in the plan?”

Natasha raised her eyebrows at Clint-- _she’s your kid, not mine_ \--and he swept a hand over his face. “It makes sense to keep you out right now,” he said, and continued over Kate's outraged squawking, “It’s good to have another person in reserve in case Natasha's cover gets blown.”

“It’s not going to get blown,” Natasha said, mildly insulted. As if she would be so careless. Clint flung her a pleading look and she relented. “Okay, fine, if I get blown, then yes, it would be helpful to have you in the wings. And in the meantime, you can work out of my office researching the exes. We’ve got backdoor hook ups to all the national databases.”

Intrigue washed out the outrage in the young woman’s eyes, and Natasha knew she was hooked. Some skills just never went away. “Even the NSA?”

“Even the NSA,” Natasha affirmed with a satisfied smirk. Clint smiled gratefully and Natasha felt her heart thunk extra hard against her ribs; but when she recounted her day for Maria at the bar that night, she left both of those parts out.


	4. Chapter 4

The next few days were spent stretching and tugging at her undercover role until it was a shape that Natasha felt she could easily slide in and out of. She visited Pepper Potts twice more to establish her cover, give details about the case so far, and generally prepare the CEO for the upcoming investigation. Natasha encouraged her to spread the rumor that she was hiring an assistant, and reminded her that, as they were dealing with a hacker, all conversations relating to her role in the investigation needed to take place face-to-face. She tasked Clint to coach Tony, made sure to prepare Maria and Kate both for the latter’s visit to the SHIELD office, and reviewed their primary suspects three more times before feeling entirely prepared.

The following Monday, Natasha arrived at Stark Tower as Natalie Rushman, personal assistant to Pepper Potts. Natalie wore her hair in soft waves and her stockings with seams up the back, with red lipstick and winged eyeliner. She had an arch sense of humor, a sultry voice half a note lower than Natasha’s, and her hips swung deliberately as she trailed Pepper through the labyrinth of Stark Industries as the day unfolded.

Personal assistants, it turned out, did not get to do all of the scandalous and sexy things that soap operas and television dramas claimed. Pepper had already been considering hiring an assistant, and so had gathered actual responsibilities for “Natalie” to cover as a sort of test run for the real deal. She attended meeting after meeting with the CEO, made coffee and filed reports and said “Ms. Potts, I need your signature on this” approximately every thirty minutes. Her feet were starting to hurt and there was a faint growl starting to emanate from her stomach despite the fact that it was only--but Natasha checked her watch and found that it was somehow already nearly two in the afternoon. Her stomach growled again, more insistently, but she didn’t have _time_ to get lunch, not when she needed to get signatures on these files, and fax those, and--

“I can hear your stomach growling from the elevator.” Clint Barton lounged against the doorway of Natasha’s office, wearing a dark suit with a tie loosened from his collar. “That is not an exaggeration.” She really, _really,_ did not have the patience to deal with that teasing smile or those glinting blue eyes, not when her stomach was probably eating itself; but just before she could bite his head off, the unmistakable scent of fry grease reached her nose and her stomach rumbled again. The smile on Clint’s face widened into a grin. “Pepper said you hadn’t eaten, so I brought you lunch. Cheeseburgers okay?”

She barely stopped herself from snatching the proffered bag out of his hands. “Thanks,” Natasha sighed with real gratitude after biting into the most heavenly burger she’d ever eaten. She had a lot of work to do, and hadn’t planned on entertaining anyone this afternoon, but it would be rude to kick him out when he’d just saved her from starvation. “Want to join me? I’ll share my fries if you tell me what you’ve learned so far.”

Clint dropped into the chair across from her and snagged a fry. “Not much to share,” he admitted as he propped his feet up on an empty corner of her desk. It was somewhat endearing that, despite his pressed suit and crisp white shirt, he was still wearing a blatantly mismatched pair of socks. “Most of the executives think that Pepper slept her way to the top. _Not_ Stane,” he added, pointing a fry at Natasha for emphasis, “but the rest of them. And they all think they job should be theirs.”

Natasha raised one eyebrow. “Bet Stane wasn’t an exception there.”

“He’s not the guy, Nat,” Clint insisted, then caught himself. “I mean, Natasha. Sorry. But I just can’t get behind the idea that the guy who bought Tony his first computer has suddenly turned on him.”

She waved her burger-free hand to dismiss the nickname, figuring that anyone who brought her food this greasy and delicious had earned a free pass. “Stane stays on the list, at least until there’s definite proof he’s innocent. Kate find anything yet?”

He clearly wanted to continue arguing, but pulled out his phone with only one begrudging sigh. “She’s got nothing, either,” he announced, swiping through his texts, “and she wants you to know that everyone in your office is terrifying.”

Natasha shrugged: Fury and Maria weren’t good at their jobs because they were friendly, and she could pretty terrifying herself when persuaded. “If she’s feeling brave, she should ask Maria about the time she punched an alligator in the face.” She watched Clint’s fingers fly as he relayed this information to Kate even as he rolled a skeptical glance in her direction.

“She probably won’t ask,” he said. “The only person Kate actively tries to embarrass is me. By this time tomorrow, the two of them will probably be thick as thieves.” He rolled his eyes, but it was a fond expression, and Natasha decided that now was as good a time as any to satisfy her curiosity. It was important, after all, to know who one was working with.

"Okay, I have to ask," she said in the vaguely apologetic tone of voice that made people think she felt bad about invading their privacy, "how in the world does a private investigator end up with a Park Avenue heiress for an apprentice? Is this some sort of YMCA Big Brothers program?"

Clint's laugh came easily. “Absolutely,” he said through a self-deprecating grin. “But actually, no. After I graduated from MIT, I spent a few summers teaching archery at some expensive as fuck girl’s camp up in New Hampshire. Kate was gangly and rebellious, clearly didn’t want to be there. They tried to kick her out after she filled her counselor’s bed with chocolate pudding, but her dad refused to pick her up and archery was the only class she didn’t hate, so I got stuck with the little shit. Really cramped my style, having a fifteen year old trailing after me while I was trying to make a move on the canoeing instructor.”

He shook his head in years-old resentment. “Anyway, it turned out she was pretty good at archery; probably better than me, _not_ that I’ll ever tell her that. She got hired on to help me teach the next summer, but then I moved to California for a while and didn’t hear from her again until we ran into each other at the archery range a few months ago. Just graduated from NYU and still wanting to stick it to her dad; so I figure sure, you know, I’ll keep an eye on her.” The story ended with a shrug, as if people regularly took care of their erstwhile campers, as if Natasha also had friends that she’d ever take care of in this way.

She shook that off and circled back to the detail that kept popping up: “Archery. You keep mentioning that. Was that your circus act?” Clint was certainly a sharp and friendly guy, but Natasha was having trouble picturing him in a flashy multi-colored costume, drawing a bow and arrow, or hamming it up for a crowd. She let a little smirk slide onto her face. “Were you any good?”

Clint’s indignation was evident in the crease of his brow and the downward turn of his lips. “Excuse you, I was _fantastic._ Still am, in fact. Here, look,” he added, standing and pulling a folding army knife from his pocket when she raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Although the bow and arrow is his weapon of choice,” he proclaimed in a bold and showy ringmaster’s voice, “The Amazing Hawkeye _never_ misses! If I could get a volunteer from the audience”--he now looked significantly at Natasha--“who would be willing to choose a target?”

She looked around her small office critically: there wasn’t really a challenging angle in the little space. _If the door was open, though…_ A short hunt through her desk drawer turned up a permanent marker and some tape, which Natasha took with her out of her office to mark Clint’s target. “X marks the spot,” she said upon her return. “Stand here in the doorway and hit the X between the UP and DOWN buttons for the elevator.” She folded her arms, satisfied with the challenge she’d presented, as he went to investigate her work.

It was a small target, and twenty feet was no small distance when it came to knife trajectories, but Clint just set his feet and sent her a cocky smile that was all showmanship. “The Amazing Hawkeye needs space to work,” he announced, and Natasha rolled her eyes and stepped back. She studied the way his bright eyes narrowed, the way his shoulder and arm muscles flexed against the wool of his suit, the way his entire body was focused on the tiny X she’d taped to the wall. For all that he moved gracefully when walking around, he threw his knife with spare precision that she almost missed.

“The Amazing Hawkeye does it again!” Clint crowed as they walked forward together to examine his shot. Even as they approached, Natasha could tell that he’d not only hit the X, but had hit the exact intersection of the crossed lines. She would have called him a show-off, but she _had_ goaded him, after all, and under the circus bravado there was real happiness as he folded the knife and stuck it back in his pocket. The ringmaster voice disappeared as he shrugged and smiled, sheepishly proud. “So yeah, I was sort of a prodigal sharpshooter. Give me a projectile and a target and I’ll hit it. That’s my secret talent, Red.” He looked at her with that affable smile, his blue eyes conspiratorial. “What’s yours?”

Here was the problem: Clint Barton had the kind of face, the kind of aura, the kind of good-hearted nature that made Natasha want to open up her ledger of sins and read it to him line by line. Clint Barton was the kind of guy who’d say, _hey, that’s alright; I mean, it sucks, but I’m pretty fucked up too, see?_ Clint Barton was much too nice to be burdened with the kinds of secret talents that she could offer: _I’m the best pickpocket in the five boroughs. I’ve remade myself so many times that sometimes I forget my favorite color. I was so good at luring nice guys like you into back alley muggings that the Red Room called me the Black Widow._

Instead of confessing her litany of evils, Natasha fell back to the safe territory of her job. “My secret talent is solving corporate espionage cases,” she informed him as she reached back into her office for a stack of papers before shutting the door. She would _not_ feel bad about the way his entire expression drooped in disappointment. “I have to go introduce Natalie to the creepy hacker, and I think Pepper wanted to see you?” Her tone made it clear: this conversation was over.

“Yeah, uh,” Clint said, as if he’d known about this meeting she’d definitely just made up, “Yeah. Right.”

“I’ll see you later,” she said, resisting the urge to jab at the DOWN button at the elevator. Clint was still hovering, out of sorts and confused, so she turned back with an appreciative smile once the doors finally slid open. “Thanks for lunch, though, Barton. It was fun.”

She smiled until the doors closed behind her, then leaned against the waist-high railing next to the bank of floor buttons. At least thanking Clint for lunch had been sincere, and had saved that encounter from ending in complete disaster. And she quickly reminded herself that there was a _job_ going on, for fuck’s sake, so whatever Clint did or didn’t feel was entirely irrelevant. What mattered was recovering the arc reactor technology, and as she descended, Natasha pushed herself back into Natalie’s mindset. Natalie wasn’t worried about the way Clint’s smile had wilted; Natalie had no terrible past that stood in the way of making new friends. Natalie existed, in this moment, to tempt John Morley into revealing himself as a hacker, and Natasha let everything else fall away from her mind as she popped a shirt button open before exiting the elevator into the data engineering lab.

As Natalie, she sashayed through the lab’s cubicles, doing her best to make an impression on as many of the scurrying nerds as possible while she searched for Morley. None of the small workstations bore his name, however, and she ended up asking one of the only women in the department for directions.

“You sure you want to talk to John?” the girl asked, freckled nose wrinkling as she pointed Natasha in the right direction. Her eyes were frank as she warned, “Woman to woman, he’s one creepy motherfucker, pardon my language.”

The fact that she was willing to use that kind of language at work, to a complete stranger, was telling. Natasha hefted the paperwork she carried and quirked her mouth ruefully. “Noted. Unfortunately, I’ve got these forms for him to sign,” she sighed, then leaned closer to intimate, “HR incidents, you know.” She raised her eyebrows, the universal signal for _that was hot gossip that you definitely didn’t hear from me,_ then headed for Morley’s office after apprehensively thanking the other woman.

The “office” was more accurately a converted storage closet, a cliche Natasha hadn’t thought existed outside of sitcoms. There were actually buckets stacked in the corner beside his desk, and there was even a single lightbulb illuminating the cramped space. John Morley himself was sallow and drawn in the fluorescent light, thin face framed by lank blond hair so pale it was almost white. His eyes, too, were pale grey, and she was reminded of Clint’s comment back in his apartment the week before: _Guy’s like a fucking ghost._

It all gave Natasha the creeps, but she knocked on the open door anyway and asked, “John Morley? May I come in?” The anemic man behind the desk nodded wordlessly and she stepped forward, dragging the stack of buckets up to his desk when she realized there was no chair. Morley watched her mutely, eyes glued to her chest as she scooted into place. A long moment passed as Natasha waited for him to say or do anything other than stare at her, but finally she offered, “I’m Natalie Rushman from the Legal department?” She found herself ending all of her statements in question marks as Morley remained silent, as if asking a question would incite him to speak. “They asked me to come down and have you sign some of these forms? For the new payroll system they’re implementing?”

He apparently felt it was finally the appropriate time to respond. “You’re new. What happened to the intern?” His voice was breathy and nasal.

The intern had refused to come down to the data engineering lab anymore because Morley creeped her out, a fact which he’d certainly been notified of via an HR report. Natasha didn’t blame the girl in the slightest. “I’m running her errands today,” she said distractedly, looking around the room for some sort of evidence so that she could get the hell out of this dingy closet. The built in shelves held a mix of cleaning supplies and whatever kind of paperwork data engineers worked with; Natasha saw graphs, charts and spreadsheets sticking out of haphazardly stacked file folders, but nothing of interest. She adjusted her seat on the bucket and her foot brushed against a roll of thick blue paper that poked out from under the desk. _Jackpot._ There were white grid lines printed across the paper, which she knew was only used by the Research  & Development department to print schematics for new products; data engineers, on the other hand, had no reason to possess such materials.

Natasha leaned forward intentionally and pretended to search through her pile of paper, all the while watching Morley’s watery eyes zone in on her cleavage once again. “I just remembered that I forgot one of the files I was supposed to have you sign,” she said mournfully. “Would it be okay if I came back later?” He nodded absently; she could have asked him to sign over his life savings and he probably would have agreed. She pushed back her bucket stack and stood, taking care to slowly scoop up her papers even though her skin was positively crawling. She was just outside the door when he spoke again.

“It was nice to meet you, Natalie,” he breathed.

His overly soft voice made her want to shudder, but she turned and plastered on Natalie Rushman’s half-smile. “It was nice to meet you too, John,” she lied, hovering at the doorway just long enough for him to think she was sincere. The elevator opened just across from his office, and even after the doors closed behind her, she could still feel the gaze of his watery, unblinking eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

Since she’d ended their conversation so abruptly the day before, Natasha was surprised when Clint turned up at lunchtime the next day with two paper boxes of takeout from the Indian place a couple blocks away. “Someone’s got to make sure that you eat,” he said as he shrugged and pushed one container across the desk. “You’re buying tomorrow, though; I’m not made of money.” Her mild protest fell on deaf ears as he began insistently reciting the information he’d learned in that morning’s interviews. Did she know, he asked with _I’m ignoring you_ stamped across his face, that the vice president of Sales was drowning in gambling debt? Wouldn’t she agree that such a situation would be a good reason for someone to make an under the table deal with Hammer?

Natasha quirked her lips in defeat, accepted the samosa he pulled from his paper bag, and thought, _tomorrow I’ll put my foot down._ But the next day came and she couldn’t turn down the fresh slice of pizza he dropped on her desk, and the next day and the next the same thing happened. When Pepper commented on it, Natasha informed her that it was merely the most convenient time for the two of them to chat about the investigation; and while this was true on the surface, they somehow always managed to quickly drift off the topic of suspects and motives and into more tangential territories like “whatever happened to the Care Bears” and “what do you _mean_ you’ve never been to the Empire State Building” and “I bet you ten bucks I can fold a paper crane faster than you.” For all that she complained about Clint's myriad of distractionary conversation, the truth was that he was the only person in Stark Tower she didn't have to perform for, and for one hour of the work day she could drop the act. It was Natasha that Clint invited to the roof for a spontaneous (and ultimately disastrous) pigeon feeding, not Natalie; it was Natasha that he kept casually trying to figure out.

"Well, I already know everything about Natalie," he explained when she asked about it. It was the end of the second week at Stark Tower, and they were riding the subway together to meet Kate for a drink. "Natalie is an open and shut case, because she's not real. Natasha, on the other hand, is a mystery. All I know about you is lame stuff like that you're, you know, funny and smart and a good detective, things like that. I know you like pizza," he tried, voice rising hopefully. “I know you like chocolate, and people watching, and looking at the clouds.” He added a reproachful, "I know you like leaving me to die when the pigeons attack."

Natasha grinned. "Those pigeons just recognized a kindred bird spirit in you, _Hawkeye,"_ she said innocently even as he groaned. "But okay, I'll tell you something about myself: I love elephants." It should have been a lie, but it wasn’t, and that was dangerous.

Clint's eyes lit up. "I'll add that to the case file," he said with mock solemnity, the effect of which was immediately ruined by the grin that broke out across his face. The subway car swayed as it turned a corner and Natasha found herself swaying with it, leaning into Clint to avoid falling over. His arm automatically looped around her waist to help, and when she looked up to say thanks she was close enough to pick out the individual striations of blue and grey in his irises, close enough to number the freckles under his permanent tan, close enough to--

_You are so dumb,_ she told herself as she stepped back, _so goddamn dumb._ Because: Clint was currently a co-worker and that should have been enough of a reason to stay away. Because: what kind of fucking idiot did she have to be, to be considering kissing him, now, on the subway?  Because: she’d let Matt Murdock kiss her against his broken office door, let him take her to dinner and to symphonies and to bed for six months; but she’d never let herself tell him anything so simple and true as her love for elephants. Because: Clint was determined to be her friend and she was just as determined to keep him at arm’s length, but he had that _smile_ and for the first time, if she wasn’t careful, it was possible that she’d lose the battle.

Fortunately, the swaying of the subway car meant that they were arriving at the Astor Place station, and Natasha could keep her distance from his magnetic presence as they climbed the stairs to the street and leaned into the cold breeze. It was only a few blocks to the bar that the three employees of SHIELD frequented after work, and Natasha was only a little surprised to find that Kate had convinced Maria to abandon her usual spot at the bar in favor of the booth they occupied in the back of the small establishment. She ignored the speculative look Kevin the bartender cast between herself and Clint as they each claimed a pint of beer and shed their coats before sliding into the booth with their counterparts.

“Rough day?” Natasha asked, taking in the collection of empty glasses on the table between Maria and Kate.

Maria scowled. “Rough _week_ for me. Creel enlisted a bunch of his dumbass friends to throw me off his trail, so now I have to work through the weekend if I’m going to get him to court on Monday.”

Kate announced, “I, however, had a _great_ week,” and grinned with exaggerated enthusiasm as Maria’s scowl deepened. “I chased down leads on all of Tony’s girlfriends. Three of them are probably not connected: Brie Daniels is too busy shooting a C-list celebrity diving show, Rumiko Fujikawa has actually taken over her father’s company, and Janice Cord’s left the energy industry entirely.” She looked significantly at Clint. “Your hunch was good. Whitney Frost is the only one whose name threw up flags in the databases.”

Clint wiped a beer foam mustache from his upper lip. “What kind of flags?”

“Maggia flags,” Kate said promptly. “She started cozying up with one of the families in the Maggia crime tree about three years ago. It’s not clear why, exactly, but it seems as if she’s pretty high up in the ranks.”

“That's about when she stopped showing up on Tony's arm,” Clint mused. “What else? Aliases? Ties to any other groups?”

Kate’s expression turned grim. “The Maggia runs the conventional crime game: illegal gambling dens, loan sharking, and the narcotics trade are their primary interests, but they’ve got their fingers in plenty of other pies. Frost seems to their liaison with a bunch of the local gangs, mainly Hydra and--you’ll _love_ this--the Red Room.”

In rapid succession, Clint snarled _“Fuck”_ and Kate shouted back _“I know!”_ and Maria’s eyes snapped to Natasha’s, wide and nervous blue across the table. Natasha gave a fractional shake of her head in a _be cool_ gesture, sipped casually from her beer, then conversationally asked, “Something you want to share with the class?”

There was an unforgiving edge to the glare Clint directed into his pint glass. “About a year ago, the Red Room tried to take over my tenement building. The landlord’s name was Ivan, big bald guy with a mustache, and he came with his track suited thugs and tried to scare us off by raising the rent six hundred percent. We held out and shit got nasty.” He finally looked up, a hard anger flattening his eyes to hammered pewter. “Motherfucker shot my dog. Anyone who’s ever associated with that gang is dead to me.”

Natasha remembered the day she earned her track suit. She may have been the street orphan Ivan had singled out to raise as a master of petty theft, but rules were rules. If she wanted that red polyester tricot suit, (and oh, never had fourteen year old Natalia wanted anything more) there was nothing else to do but trail her assigned mark, jimmy open a window one thunderous night, and empty an old woman’s safe while she slept. It had given her pause to steal the antique photographs sitting on top of the jewelry and cash, tiny ants of guilt and conscience skittering up her spine, but she’d told herself it was worth it just to finally wear that red jacket just like everybody else.

It wasn’t worth it, though: not then, not on the days when a job would go bad and she’d get locked up for weeks, and not now, when she recognized that any hope of ever being honest with Clint about her past had just gone up in flames. But that was neither here nor there, so she said what was true: “God, what a monster;” what was false: “I can’t believe anyone could do something like that;” and then asked a question: “But you beat them?”

The Red Room, on principle, did not lose, but Kate snorted and said, “We kicked their asses and they fucking ran. Haven’t seen those pieces of shit in Bed-Stuy since.” This, at least, meant that Natasha was safe from running into her former associates while she was in the neighborhood. She was surprised both in the fact that she hadn’t heard about the confrontation and in the mind-boggling idea that a pair of bow-wielding (she assumed) civilians had scared off one of the most notable gang bosses in Brooklyn.

“It takes a lot to convince Ivan Petrovich to cut and run,” Maria said, clearly as impressed as Natasha. “He’s a real piece of work. And if Whitney Frost is wrapped up with him--”

“Then we need to talk to Tony first thing tomorrow.” Natasha picked up the sentence before Maria could say something that would incriminate her. “We need to find out why they broke up and if he knows anything about this.” Clint nodded and hunted for his phone while Kate spelled out the other miscellaneous details she’d learned in the past week.

After their first round of drinks, Kate shut down all work talk by challenging first Maria, then Natasha to a game of darts. Neither woman was any slouch in the marksmanship department, Maria having been trained at the police academy and Natasha under Ivan’s unforgiving tutelage; all the same, when Clint pushed off the wall he’d been lounging against and drawled, “Katie-Kate, why don’t we show ‘em how it’s done,” it became clear that the entire competition had been a setup that led to the pair of archers showing off.

“I think we’ve been played,” Natasha said to Maria, taking up the wall space Clint had just vacated. A crowd started to gather as he and Kate hit bullseye after bullseye, and there was a glimmer in his eye as he once again pulled out his Amazing Hawkeye routine. When Natasha still wore that red track suit, she would have considered this spectacle to be the perfect pickpocketing opportunity: Clint’s theater training, combined with his circus charisma and mischievous charm, was the exact kind of distraction she used to treasure hunt through purses and pockets. She might have even considered recruiting him: he was rough enough around the edges, had a checkered enough past, that fluttering eyelashes and a perfectly constructed offer could be all the convincing he needed. They’d be a great team; with him on her squad, they could have made out like bandits.

_“I_ think we’re lucky we didn't put money on this,” Maria muttered as Clint nailed a behind the back shot in what was clearly the climax of this performance. The small crowd erupted into a cheer, and it was only after he grinned at Natasha and she smiled back that Maria added, “And I think you’re going home with this guy tonight. I think you like him.”

“No I don't,” Natasha lied automatically, wrestling the petulance out of her voice. “And no I won’t. Or maybe you forgot the whole _all Red Room associates are dead to him_ bit. It would be over the second I said anything.”

She realized her mistake a split second too late, and unfortunately, Maria wasn’t dumb enough to miss it. “But you _want_ to tell him,” she seized upon. “You _would_ if he wasn’t going to hate you afterwards. Romanoff, come on. The fact that you want to share an important detail like that about yourself means _something.”_

“That I’m an idiot who’s losing their touch?”

“Or that you’re a _person,_ who’s allowed to be themself and, you know, _like_ people and have friends and be _happy,”_ Maria said, mild exasperation threading through her words. “Look, Romanoff, I’m not Dr. Phil, okay? I think you owe it to yourself to be honest with the guy, but if you don’t, it’s no skin off my nose. What I’m really saying is that I let Kate kick my ass twice so that you’d have extra time to make moon eyes at him, and if you don’t make a move then that loss of pride will have been in vain.” With those words of encouragement, Maria looked down at her watch and grimaced. “Fuck. I’m late to spy on one of Creel’s goons. Don’t be a wimp, Red,” she said in parting before shouldering through Clint and Kate’s dispersing crowd to say her goodbyes.

Natasha kept her position holding up the wall as the bar’s patrons shuffled back to their tables and booths. If Maria hadn’t left so abruptly, she would have argued that she wasn’t a _wimp,_ just a realist; and as such, was able to recognize that all friendly overtures between herself and Clint Barton were going to evaporate once he knew the truth about her past. She could admit that she enjoyed his company and didn’t want said evaporation of friendliness to occur, and could also admit that making friends was something she wanted to get better at; thus, _realistically,_ the best way to combine these two goals was to _not_ tell Clint about the Red Room so that he’d continue to want to spend time with her. In fact, _realistically,_ she was being the opposite of a wimp!

This train of thought was derailed as Kate sidled up next to Natasha. “Maria asked me to relay this message: Don’t be a wimp.” Her blue eyes shone impishly. “Is it about Clint? I hope it’s about Clint.”

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Natasha asked, ignoring the speculation entirely.

Kate stuck her tongue out. “Fine, don’t tell me,” she huffed. “I’ll just find out from Maria on Monday.” This troubling possibility distracted Natasha so much that she missed the rest of Kate’s non-sequitur conversation about an inexplicably patriotic party she was heading to in Chelsea, and returned to the exchange only to immediately wave goodbye as the girl took off into the night, elbowing Clint in the side as she went.

“That girl is a menace,” he said without venom, rubbing at his torso. He came to lean against the wall next to Natasha, bumping his hip and shoulder up against hers even though there was plenty of room. They stood that way for a minute, Natasha measuring the half-pulled angle of his lips and eyeing the shock of hair that fell over his eyebrow. She could feel his eyes lingering on hers in silent question, and wondered which of them would ask it.

Apparently, it was her, as her mouth opened on its own accord and asked, “Do you want to get out of here?” _Well, at least you can tell Maria you weren’t a wimp._ “I have good coffee, and I’m only a few blocks away.”

Clint’s half smile stretched into a full grin, delighted in a way that sent a warm feeling coiling down to her toes. “Absolutely,” he said, even before her lame follow up was concluded. “Only because of the coffee, though,” he added, eyes dancing. “Otherwise, I’d definitely be unavailable.” He made a flourishing arm gesture towards the door and, once they were on the street, took her hand in his and let her lead him down the block.


	6. Chapter 6

The walk from the bar to her apartment normally only took ten minutes, but the night was clear and Natasha was content to stroll along, her arm tucked in the crook of Clint’s elbow. Circus caravans had given him an appreciation for the stars, and he pointed out the faint constellations that could be seen through the East Village’s light pollution.

“There’s Orion,” he said, indicating the slanted line of three stars that made the constellation easy to identify. “And this box over here is Pegasus, which is pretty dumb if you ask me. What kind of horse looks like a square, huh? Not a horse I want to ride, that’s for sure.” Even in the dappled light of the streetlamps, Natasha could see his enthusiasm brightening his eyes and pushing his smile wider. His passion for the subject made her more willing to squint at the vague shapes of the night.

“I think I see a W?” she volunteered as they neared her apartment. “Or it might be a 3?”

“Both, actually,” Clint agreed. “The story of Cassiopeia is complicated and dramatic, but it involves three _women;_ hence both are accurate.” He took a breath, probably to begin said complicated and dramatic story, then halted suddenly and said in an entirely different voice that made her freeze as well, “Nat, does that guy down the street look familiar to you?”

For a single moment, she thought the pale figure she saw was Ivan, perhaps washed out by the streetlamp above; but her eyes quickly identified the greasy and unwashed white-blond hair, the thick-lensed glasses. “It’s Morley,” she whispered, “But I--How did he--” _Now isn’t the time for questions._ She held Clint where he was. “Don’t say anything. I’ll handle it.”

The problem was that Natalie had been tucked away for the night, and now Natasha was trying to dress herself in the dark. She couldn’t remember how she’d addressed him before, so she settled on an inquisitive “John Morley?” and hoped it didn’t sound as disturbed as she actually was.

“You’re out late, Natalie,” Morley replied, blinking slowly in the fluorescent street light. “Usually you’re home by now.”

Natasha’s hand tightened around Clint’s instinctively, and the taste of bile scratched at her throat. How long had he been watching her? How had he gotten this address? Most importantly, how had she _missed_ this? “I didn’t know you’d be here,” she apologized. “How did you find me?”

Morley had a little cough of a laugh, like a phlegmatic toad. “Natalie,” he chided, “I knew from our first meeting that you needed a man like me in your life. I had to follow you home to make sure that you were safe; women like you need to be shielded from men less noble than myself.” He threw a dark look in Clint’s direction to indicate that he did not pass muster. “But you never came back to my office to thank me, so I decided to get here before you and make sure that you knew who was watching over you. But now you’re late,” he said, voice suddenly dipping low and resentful, “And you show up with someone _else._ I don’t like that.”

Clint put his hands on his hips, deeply offended. “Are you implying that I'm, what, _unworthy?_ You don't even know me!” In other circumstances, it would have been hilarious; in these circumstances, however, Morley’s hand shot out and grabbed Natasha by the elbow. He had a surprisingly strong grip for a guy who looked like he was made of sour milk, and his overgrown fingernails dug crescents into her skin.

“You’re hurting me,” she said, and neither Morley nor Clint knew her well enough to recognize the barely leashed danger in her voice. There was nothing of Natalie’s coy charm as she added, “Let go, please.”

“I’m sorry,” Morley said, and he sounded so apologetic that Natasha thought he was going to let her go, and then Natalie could talk the situation out, and while she might have to go to bed unsatisfied at least her cover would remain intact. But then he continued, “I know you’re delicate; that’s why I have to defend you,” and he ran his free hand along her cheek in an attempt to be tender.

At that point, Natasha didn’t think she could be blamed for shouting, “Let _go_ of me!” and wrenching out of his grasp. She would have been perfectly content to leave the encounter there, but Morley, apparently dumbfounded at her lack of interest, started a diatribe that began with “You _bitch”_ and end it with a wildly aimed punch that somehow managed to land on her mouth. Behind her, Clint snapped, _“Hey!”_ and started to move, but she was closer, and faster.

John Morley was not a Red Room gang member: he was not trained or armed like the men and women she was once used to fighting. Unfortunately for him, Natasha had always been the smallest of the group, so she’d never had occasion or reason to learn to pull punches. Her fist connected with his nose, eliciting a shriek, followed by a groan as her knee aimed directly for his stomach. Before he could crumple to the ground, Natasha grabbed him under the armpits and shoved him up against the brick exterior of her apartment building.

“That wasn’t very nice,” she informed her captive, who was still wheezing. Blood waterfalled from his clearly broken nose. “Next time a woman tells you to let go, I recommend you do it, okay?”

Morley’s sullen eyes flashed in defiance. “I don’t have to listen to you,” he spat. “You’re just a--”

Natasha jerked her knee to his groin and he winced away. “Do you _really_ want to finish that sentence?” The pale man took his time answering, and in that moment she weighed her meager options. Her cover was now officially blown, so smoothing things over was out of the question. The only viable strategy she had at this point was to pry the answers she needed out of Morley while she had him available. Let him slip through her fingers and who knew what kind of slimy activity he’d next get up to.

Finally, the man held against the wall shook his head. Natasha rewarded him with a humorless smile. “Good choice. Now, Mister Morley, while we’re here enjoying this clear evening air, you’re going to answer some questions, and you’re not going to lie. Tell me, are you still taking money from Hammer Industries?”

Morley’s gaze was again sullen, and Natasha again pressed her knee into a sensitive area. “No,” he muttered, looking anywhere but her face.

“No?” She let her eyebrows lift skeptically. “I asked you not to lie, John.”

Angry pale eyes met hers again. “I’m not lying,” he insisted. “I’ve never worked for Hammer Industries.”

“Then who _do_ you work for?” Natasha asked. “Who gave you the blueprints that are sitting under your desk?”

This time she had to apply significant force before Morley finally whined, “I’m not supposed to say.” Natasha said nothing. “I can’t,” he protested in her silence, “I don’t even really know who he is! I only get emails, or texts, but they’re encrypted: I haven’t been able to trace where they come from. He must work in the building, and I know he has access to the R&D Department, because he knows exactly what he wants me to take, and sometimes he’ll leave things in my office… But I don’t know who he is, I swear! If he knew that I was telling this to you, I’d--” He sighed and hung his head. “I’ll get in trouble, I’ll lose my job, I’ll--I’ll--”

She could tell that she had reached the end of his useful knowledge: anything else he shared would be a rehash of this information, tossed with a little extra wheedling and (in all likelihood) some sexist bullshit that would make her want to bash his teeth in. There was no guarantee that his contact was a man, and she could have tried to pressure more information out of him, but it was time to wrap it up. “Thank you, John, you’ve been most helpful,” she said with a cat’s smile. “Now then. I want you to go to the emergency room and tell them you’ve been mugged. They’ll fix your nose. Following that, I want you to email your immediate supervisor and resign your position immediately on the grounds of stalking of your female coworkers--yes, I know _all_ about that. Do not mention this evening, or anything about who you’re working for, understand? And finally,” --Natasha leaned in very close, a lethal, almost feral smile across her face-- “I want you to forget this address. I want you to forget the addresses of any women you’ve ever followed home. If I ever see your pathetic face again, it won’t just be your nose that’s out of joint. Do we have an agreement?”

She held him up until he nodded jerkily. When she released him, Morley half-sagged to the ground and looked up at her in horror. “Who _are_ you?” he croaked as he straightened.

Natasha leaned close enough to smell the panic on him. “I’m from the Red Room, kid,” she said with an unkind laugh, “And you’re lucky the Black Widow is letting you get away so easily. Now go.” She stepped back enough for John Morley to stagger away, clutching his nose. _All in all,_ she reflected as she watched the man make his way down the street, _a job well done. Minimal injury, a strong new thread for the case, and I even got rid of Stark Tower’s most notorious slimeball._ She was feeling sufficiently pleased with herself as she turned--and halted.

Once she’d engaged Morley, she’d completely forgotten about her companion: Clint Barton, who only knew her as a detective. Clint Barton, who loathed every member of the Red Room past and present. Clint Barton, who was starkly frozen on the sidewalk, staring at her with naked betrayal.

“Red Room, huh?” There was a harsh anger wound tight and sharp around his words. “Something you didn’t think I needed to know? Waiting until you could lead your friends back to my building and finish taking the place over?”

“Clint, _no_ \--” But there wasn’t anything else she could say, and then he was shaking his head and stalking away, and Natasha was left alone in the cold midnight wind.

 

_question: why isn’t clint eating his usual post-hook up donut bacon sandwich?_

_follow up question: why did he just say, and i quote, don’t you fucking text nat asking where my sandwich is?_

_double follow up question: are you on your way? we’re meeting with tony in 15_

 

It was the third chirp of her phone that finally convinced Natasha to poke her head out from under her pillow and squint at the screen. Eyes bleary in the morning sun, it took her a moment to scan through her memories and realize that she’d never been told when they were meeting Tony this morning. Her phone showed no recent texts from Clint, only the three from Kate, so he’d clearly decided to cut her out of the investigation. She couldn’t exactly blame him for that.

But she was still going to that meeting. With a groan, Natasha threw off her covers and propelled herself into motion. _Maybe I should have called Maria,_ she thought as she shoved herself into jeans and just barely managed to get her shirt on the right side out. But Maria was still hunting for Creel and wouldn’t have appreciated the interruption; besides, Natasha hadn’t been in the mood for the platitudes she’d be sure to receive. She’d next considered tracking Kate down at her party in Chelsea, but that would only have led to persistent questions and feeling too old for the crowded dance floor and probably a splitting headache. Instead, she’d laid facedown in her bed and cursed Ivan and the Red Room and most of all herself until sleep had taken her.

There was no time to dwell on that. She had twelve minutes to make it to the Research and Development department in Stark Tower, but luck was on her side and she skidded onto the train at First Avenue just as the doors began to squeak shut. The lighting in the subway tunnels was poor, but Natasha was still able to use the scratched plastic windows of the train to straighten her hair and swipe on lipstick; armor for the battle she was expecting upon her arrival. Stark Tower was a ghost town on the weekends, and the access codes she’d earned as Pepper’s assistant meant that she was able to walk into Tony Stark’s glassed-in lab a fashionable three minutes late.

“Natalie!” the engineer exclaimed, then frowned. “No, that’s not it. Nadia… Nastya? Naomi?”

“Natasha,” Kate supplied, looking over from where she was perched on an unoccupied counter. “You didn’t answer my texts, what gives?” It was clear from the curious light in her eyes that she was more interested in Clint’s missing heart attack sandwich than in Natasha’s lateness.

Natasha didn’t look at Clint, who had stopped fiddling with Tony’s acetylene torch and was now solely occupied with scowling at Kate. “Sorry, I overslept. Have you already started?”

“Does Clint Barton start anything on time?” Tony asked with a grin. “This guy was late for his own senior thesis performance. A one-man show is pretty boring without its star, but he still managed to get an A, somehow.” He laughed a little, but Clint’s jaw tightened and Natasha could only manage a tiny smile. “Wow, tough crowd today.”

“Just have a lot of shit to deal with,” Clint said, credibly disguising the side-eyed glare he sent in the direction of both women in the room. “Anyway. We have some questions about one of your ex-girlfriends. Whitney Frost?”

All the good humor drained from Tony’s face. “Clint, because you’re my friend, I won’t throw you out on your ass right now. But we are _not_ talking about this.” He turned his back on his audience and pointedly began tinkering with some sort of mechanized gauntlet.

“We damn well are,” Clint insisted, walking around the workstation so he could get in his friend’s face. “Or don’t you want to know who’s stealing your tech?”

“I don’t care,” Tony said stubbornly, dodging Clint’s gaze. “Not if it involves her. She can have the whole goddamn company.” He leaned closer to his work and added under his breath, “It’s the least I could do.”

_“The least I could do?” What does that mean?_ Natasha saw Clint puffing up for another round of yelling, but that wasn’t producing any results so far, and if he kept yelling, Tony was going to shut down and kick them all out. She shot a glance at Kate, who seemed to grasp the gist of the situation, because she reached for Clint’s arm and towed him away. While he tried to fight his apprentice off, Natasha slid into the workstation to take his place in Tony’s space.

“The least you could do,” she repeated quietly, mind racing to supply a reason that he’d give up his entire company. “The least you could do… to make up for something?” Tony’s hands stopped fidgeting and his fingers clenched the screwdriver he’d been using. _On the right track,_ she assumed, and continued pressing: “To make up for what? For something you said? Something you did?”

Tony flinched, as if her words had struck his skin, and Clint stopped fighting Kate off and looked at his friend with wary interest. “What’d you do, Tony?” he asked, tone a hair short of accusatory.

“You should go,” Tony said, voice flat and miserable.

The puzzle pieces Natasha had been arranging and rearranging in her brain finally clicked into place. “Her face,” she breathed, not needing the anguish in Tony’s eyes to know she was right. “You had something to do with that scar,” she asked gently, “didn’t you?”

Tony dropped the gauntlet back to the table with a clank and looked around the room. His blank eyes swept over Kate, who had retreated back to her counter, and Clint, whose expression was unreadable as he crossed his arms, before finally settling back on Natasha. She pushed the tension out of her shoulders and focused on making her body language as open as possible.

When he spoke, his voice was absent its usual flippancy; his entire demeanor was one of defeat. “We were on our way to my family’s cabin in the mountains for a long weekend. She--okay, so Whitney had been searching for her birth parents since before we’d even met, right, and she tells me as we’re driving through the rain that she’d finally found her father. Amazing, right? So of course I’m excited for her, who wouldn’t be; but then she told me who it was and I--we--”

Tony tore his gaze away from Natasha, but not before she saw tears surging in his eyes. These were the times she hated: having to push and prod at people already overwhelmed by emotions, by guilt or shame or remorse. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kate strain forward to hear her quietly ask, “What happened next?”

Her interviewee dashed angrily at his eyes. “What happened next is I lost it, okay? Her dad is a bad dude, and she was talking about _working_ for him, about throwing away all the scruples I thought she had in favor of joining the family business, and just--I flipped my shit, and we were arguing, and it was raining and I wasn’t paying attention, and the next thing I know the road’s turning and I’m not and we’re nose-first into a fucking _tree_ and her face--” His voice broke as he tried to continue, “I can’t--”

Clint looked at Natasha for a long second, his anger at her clearly in this moment overrun by concern for his friend. “Hey man,” he said gently, clapping a hand on Tony’s shoulder, “It was an accident. I’m sorry that happened, and I’m sorry she got hurt, but it was an accident. Forgive yourself a little.”

Tony made a face that suggested he absolutely would not be doing any such thing. “Yeah, sure, maybe,” he said unconvincingly. “Anyway, we were able to keep it out of the papers because, you know, money. I offered to pay for plastic surgery to fix the scar, but she refused to take anything from me. I guess maybe now she’s decided that she wants something after all.” He sighed with the weight of the world and looked up, eyes bleak. “Can’t say I blame her.”

Natasha looked from Tony to Clint, whose brow was gathered in thought. “If you don’t mind one more question,” she began apologetically, “And then I promise we’ll leave you alone--”

“Who was her father?” Clint broke in, evidently not listening to their conversation as his epiphany arrived. He ducked his head and continued, “Um, sorry, but: what was her birth name, then?”

Tony closed his eyes and set his hand over them. “Her name was Giuletta, and her father is Luchino Nefaria.”

Kate gasped and Clint swung around to look at her. “What? Why do I know that name?”

The apprentice looked from her mentor to Natasha, a stricken look on her face. “Luchino Nefaria,” she said slowly, looking at the file clutched her in hands. She selected a sheet and held it up between trembling fingers. A cruel face glared at the group from the paper as she recited, “‘Luchino Nefaria, better known as Count Nefaria, heads the most dangerous family of the Maggia crime tree of New York.’”


	7. Chapter 7

She appreciated that Clint waited until they were ensconced in her office before turning on her. “So, Romanoff,” he said with false lightness, as if they were discussing lunch plans, “Anything you want to share? Maybe the fact that you’re working with our friend Whitney to help the Red Room and the Maggia steal from Stark Industries? Or that you got yourself hired onto this investigation to direct us away from the actual culprit?”

_Well, if that’s the way you want to play…_ “You got me,” Natasha shrugged, nonchalantly inspecting her nails to cover the hurt that rose inside her. “Me and Whitney go way back, and we met up for drinks after our Evil Girls Anonymous meeting and said, ‘Hey, you know that would be fun? Let’s go steal some Stark tech and sell it to Hammer, just so we can fuck with Clint Barton!’” She dropped her hand and threw a disdainful look in Clint’s direction. “Don’t be an idiot. I’ve never met Whitney Frost _or_ this Giuletta woman. The simplest answer isn’t always the right one.”

Clint scoffed back, “Maybe so, but in this case it makes plenty of sense. You could be lying about knowing Frost; you’ve been lying to everyone in this building about being Natalie Rushman, and god _knows_ you lied about your past. Is Natasha even your real name? Is _anything_ about you real?”

“Okay, hi?” Kate spoke up for the first time, eyes saucer wide as she raised her hand in interruption. “Could someone tell me why everyone’s yelling?”

Natasha had hoped that a night to sleep on it would have lessened the intensity of his anger, but Clint’s sense of betrayal still shone through as he turned to his apprentice and said, “Natasha is a card carrying, tracksuit wearing member of the Red Room.”

Kate drew back in shock. “Natasha,” she said, slow and wary, with eyes that begged her to deny the claim, “That’s not true, is it?”

With a sigh, Natasha sank into the chair behind her desk and wished that Maria were there to help her put all the cards on the table: she always knew what to say. “It’s not true,” she said quietly as Kate and Clint each reluctantly took seats across the desk, Clint with heavy skepticism etched into his expression. “I am _not_ a member of the Red Room--but I was.

“My parents died when I was four. They were Russian immigrants and had ties to the Red Room, I never learned the exact connection; but the takeaway is that, when they died, Ivan Petrovich became my legal guardian. He--they _raised_ me, alright, and that meant I learned all the skills that make someone a successful member of the gang. I knew how to pick a mark out of a crowd before I learned to tie my shoes. It was the only way of life I knew, and I was _good_ at it. I could become anyone, I could steal anything; I could sell a hat to the Headless Horseman. I became an official member when I was fourteen, but I was essentially Ivan’s daughter and they'd called me the Black Widow for years at that point.

“Maria was the first police officer who was able to consistently track me down and stop my operations. I spent more time in the backseat of her squad car than I did on the streets; but Ivan had connections in the department and none of her charges ever managed to stick. Of course, Ivan was furious that I wasn’t bringing in nearly as much profit, and the rest of the Red Room thought this was special treatment, and resented me for it. By the time Maria and Fury left the force and offered me this job, I was estranged from the gang and Ivan both. I walked away and haven’t looked back.”

She’d stared into the middle distance between Clint and Kate’s shoulders as she’d spoken, afraid that if she looked at either of them and saw scorn or disbelief, she’d fold in on herself and implode. Now that her story was done, she was glad she had: while sympathy was woven into Kate’s eyes, Clint’s brow was still folded and he looked, if not unconvinced, then perhaps unmoved. _You can’t win them all,_ or so they always said. But she hadn’t wanted to win them all, just these two, just the first friends she’d made from scratch.

“So do you want me to leave?” Natasha finally asked when the silence stretched too long.

“You can stay,” Clint said, but there was none of his usual good humor in his voice, and not even a sharp glance from Kate changed that. “What can we do about Frost, or Nefaria, or whatever the hell her name is? Do you--” His jaw clenched and his eyes hardened and she _hated_ it. “Do you have any contacts still within the gang?”

At least she had an answer for that. “No,” she said immediately, almost before the question was fully out. “I haven’t spoken to any of them since I left, and that was three years ago now.” She had hoped that this made it sufficiently clear that she hadn’t been a part of the raid on Clint’s building, that she’d gotten out of the game far before Ivan had set his sights on the little tenement at the corner of Quincy and Tompkins. “Maria still has some contacts in the gang division of the Brooklyn PD. I’ll see if she can set up a meeting for us.”

“Great,” Clint said, flat and unaffected and somehow already out of his chair. “Let me know when the meeting is,” and then he was out the door, and Natasha and Kate had nothing to stare at but each other. There was a gaping, cumbersome silence, and Natasha, who generally knew how to fill in the cracks of any conversation, couldn’t think of the right thing to say.

“You should have told us.” Kate’s eyes were down, focused on her fingernail tracking through a seam of wood in Natasha’s desk. “At the bar, I mean. Before--before whatever happened between you two.”

It took effort not to roll her eyes. “Would you?” Natasha replied, tossing the question back to the junior detective. “Would you listen to your new friends talk about the single group of people they hate the most, and immediately respond, ‘hey, here’s a fun fact, I used to run with those guys?’” She shoved back her chair and went to the window, unable to meet Kate’s reproachful blue gaze. There were seagulls swooping along the hot air currents on the other side of the glass: _one, two, three, fou--stop._ “They shot his fucking _dog,_ Kate, okay, and _those_ are the kind the people that raised me, and I’m just as bad as them.”

“No, you’re not.” There was a note of surprise in Kate’s voice, and Natasha turned around. There were many moments in which Natasha understood why Clint and Kate worked so well together, but this was probably the clearest example: the same bemused tilt of the head, the same minute squint as they considered a challenge. It was the same bright-eyed and analytical expression he’d worn that first lunch as he considered the target Natasha had presented him.

Thinking about that lunch, about Clint’s kindness and his smile, made her stomach hurt. “Of course I am,” she said briskly, moving papers around on her desk so she didn’t have to look at whatever misguided pity was gathering in Kate’s eyes. Pity was the last thing she deserved.

Kate seemed to recognize what she was doing, but allowed Natasha her dignity and merely continued, “I mean, you left, right? Like, these were the people you knew and loved, but you were able to see something else for yourself besides life in the gang, and when the opportunity came you weren’t too scared to take it.” The girl shrugged. “I don’t know if I could do that. I think you’re pretty brave.” Natasha at last offered the girl a small smile, and Kate grinned in return. “I think Clint will, too, once he calms down. Or, at least, he should. If he doesn’t, I mean, I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that Clint Barton is a human disaster, so you’d probably be dodging a bullet, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Natasha said, not particularly comforted. “I guess.” Kate nodded and left, lips tilted to the side as if she didn’t know what else to say. Alone, Natasha turned back to the window and finally gave herself over to counting the stupid birds until the blazing sun overwhelmed her eyes.

 

Thirty hours later, as the Sunday twilight gathered in pink and golden piles on street corners, Natasha met Clint at a warehouse out on the docks in Vinegar Hill. Maria’s contact had landed them an appointment with Giuletta Nefaria. _6pm at the vh docks,_ her text had read, and _don’t forget, they refer to her as madame masque._ Natasha had dutifully relayed this information to Clint, whose incredibly brief response led her to believe their friendship was well and truly severed.

_No matter,_ she told herself, and it would be true soon enough: they’d solve this case and move on to other partnerships and investigations, never crossing paths again. All she had to do was focus and work hard and stop thinking about the way Clint’s entire frame was held rigidly away from her in anger.

And it certainly didn’t help when a Red Room member in a telltale red tracksuit came tripping out to escort them into the warehouse where the meet-up was being held. He was just a kid, really, thumb scraping over the chin he’d clearly just learned how to shave; but Clint was still stiff, still wouldn’t meet her eyes as they wound through hallways made of chain link fences, and Natasha wanted desperately to be somewhere else. There was a palpitation of fear thumping in her throat: that Ivan would be there, smug and manipulative, that he’d tell Clint this had all been a clever ruse, and that Clint would believe him, because why shouldn’t he?

They arrived at their meeting location and Natasha realized with a muttered curse that she hadn’t paid attention to the lefts and rights they’d taken as they were led through the maze. She didn’t dare look at Clint, so she settled for hoping that the meeting went well, or else that he’d kept track, though neither option inspired much faith.

The room where the junior Red Room recruit deposited them was small and windowless, only half lit by a single bulb protruding from the wall. The lighted side of the room contained a battered table and collection of mismatched chairs; on the side still pooled in darkness, Natasha could just make out the outline of a door. Left with no instructions, she chose a chair and tried not to wince as the chair legs scraped along the concrete floor. Clint did the same, and they sat in a silence that probably should have been filled with constructive conversation, or plans, or _something;_ but then the door swung open and a shadow, walking with the click of spike-heeled boots, detached itself from the darkness and claimed the seat farthest from the dim bulb’s light. Natasha could just barely make out recognizable features: the same high cheekbones and cascading hair that she’d seen in Whitney Frost’s security photo weeks before. It was too dark to make out the slashing red across the other woman’s face; this could not be an accident.

“So,” came a haughty voice out of the darkness, “You’ve come to me begging for information I may or may not have, and yet I do not know your names.”

It was not a question but a command. “My associate is Hawkeye,” Natasha supplied quickly, before Clint could give his real name, “And you may refer to me as the Black Widow.”

Despite the cloak of shadows, the widening of Madame Masque’s eyes was unmistakeable. “Not a name commonly thrown around in these parts,” she said slowly. “Though my associates here in the Red Room mention one periodically: a girl who used to run with them, a real heartbreaker, with red hair and the fastest grab in the five boroughs.” She paused, clearly relishing the hold she had over them, though Natasha did her best to look bored and Clint appeared thoroughly uninterested. “Her name was Natalia Romanova. Sound familiar?”

“That’s me,” Natasha said glibly. It wasn’t often that she attempted to trade on her old persona--in fact, this instance was the first--but if it got them the information they needed, she’d be Natalia all night long, Clint Barton be damned.

“Well, this changes everything,” Madame Masque declared, spreading her hands in a magnanimous gesture. “The daughter of Ivan Petrovich can ask me any question she wants.”

_Fucking shit._ Clint apparently _was_ a pretty good actor, as his face didn’t budge into betrayal as she expected it to, and Natasha opted to press on rather than argue semantics with a mob boss’ daughter. “You may regret that,” she said smoothly, “because we’re here to ask some questions about your time with Tony Stark.”

Only the slightest inhale indicated that the woman in the shadows was affected by this statement. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” she said with cold geniality. “I of course know who he is, all of New York City does; but I’ve never met him.”

“That’s not quite true,” Clint said quickly, before Madame Masque could click away and take this lead with her. In quick succession, he whipped out a series of photographs that all depicted Tony Stark and a young, unscarred Whitney Frost and spread them across the table. “In fact, it’s not true at all. Everyone here calls you Madame Masque, but you used to go by a different name; didn’t you, _Whit_ \--”

“Do _not,”_ she hissed, leaning forward to emphasize, and the light, fluorescent and unforgiving, finally tripped over searing marks that cleaved her Italian good looks and accentuated her all-consuming fury. “Do not _ever_ say that name in my presence.” They waited in uneasy quiet until she pulled back from the light and resettled in her chair. Her voice was hard and tightly wound when she spoke again. “Fine. I was once a girl on the arm of Tony Stark. You’ve seen what I got out of that.”

“Yes,” said Natasha, “And that’s why we’re here.” Now that she’d shown her face, Madame Masque no longer clung to the shadows; the raise of one eyebrow indicated that Natasha could continue the line of conversation. “We’ve been hired to investigate an information leak from Stark Industries, and--”

“And you think I’m, what, some sort of hacker? That _I_ could possibly possess the skills to maneuver around Tony Stark, computer _genius?”_ She laughed a little, mean and humorless, and peered disinterestedly at her nails. “Oh, my dear, you must not be the clever Black Widow the Red Room lost, if you believe this.”

Natasha did not appreciate condescension: she was many things, but stupid had never been one of them. “I _don’t_ believe that,” she replied, taking care not to let her voice snap in irritation, but rather ring crisp and even in every corner of this tiny concrete room. “What I _do_ believe is that someone with your connections, with the kind of money that your father has, and with the screaming hatred you possess towards Tony, could be motivated to _find_ someone with the skills necessary.” She was pleased to see the smirk slip off Madame Masque’s face. “I _believe_ that, when you met your father, he encouraged you to seek connections within Stark Industries, for the betterment of the family business, of course. I _believe_ that you’ve kept up with those connections, looking for ways to turn them against the company, looking for the right time to strike back at Tony for what he did to you three years ago.” Natasha sat back in her chair and crossed her legs, a smile just tugging up the corners of her mouth. “I believe you’re perfectly capable of running a game of corporate espionage, Madame, and only an idiot would think otherwise.”

She could feel Clint’s eyes on her then, but the glance she began to shoot in his direction was diverted when Madame Masque spoke. “You mention my father very carelessly,” she said slowly, her nails scraping circles on the metal tabletop. “Considering he’s one of the most powerful men in the city. I’m surprised you, the _daughter_ of Ivan Petrovich, don’t have more respect for Count Nefaria.”

It was bait, clear as day, and Natasha took it anyway. “Ivan is _not_ my father,” she ground out, refusing to let the statement lie uncontested a second time. “He and the Red Room are no family to me, not anymore.”

From the shadows, Madame Masque pounced. “Ah,” she sighed, “not anymore. What a shame it is when families can’t manage to stay together. And _poor_ Ivan, getting older each day, and without his favorite child there to care for him.”

“Seemed pretty spry last I saw him,” Clint said under his breath.

Natasha pushed the conversation on before Madame Masque could ask how and when and why Clint had gained knowledge of the Red Room’s leader. “Ivan is no family to me, blood or otherwise,” she said firmly. “I’d happily leave him bleeding out in a ditch. Get to your point.”

Madame Masque’s eyes glinted maliciously. “Ivan misses you terribly,” she purred. “You were his favorite, by far the best recruit he ever had, and you _abandoned_ him. Recently Ivan and I have had some minor disagreements about arrangements between our organizations, but I rather think that, if I were the one who returned you to the fold, he’d be willing to grant me some favors.”

“Not seeing what I gain from this arrangement,” Natasha said coolly, crossing her arms over her thumping heart.

“Well, my dear Natalia,” her adversary sighed dramatically, “It seems that you were quite right about a number of things. I _do_ have access to money and that opens the door to all of the hackers I could ever need to employ, and much more besides that. Unfortunately for you, I’ve been too busy with other projects to bother sabotaging Anthony Stark; _however,_ I still have many contacts in Stark Industries.” She paused, clearly enjoying being able to draw out her play. “Vice presidents engaged in damaging affairs, an R &D executive who’s quite dissatisfied with his role in the conpany, all the way down to a few light-fingered cleaning staff; I’ve got ties everywhere. I’m sure I could scrounge up their names and some exciting dirt on each of them--in exchange for your cooperation, of course.”

Natasha bit her lip. “So I quit the investigation and return to the Red Room, you get whatever favors Ivan tosses your way, and Hawkeye here gets the names and intel for all of your contacts?” She had to admit it was fairly balanced--well, aside for what basically amounted to giving up her freedom, the life she’d so carefully constructed. The thought didn’t exactly fill her with joy, but on the other hand… _You escaped the Red Room once and you can do it again, even if this time Ivan will have eyes on you every waking moment. You’re still the fastest grab in the boroughs; you’re still able to change who you are at will. Clint and Kate don’t need your help to finish the investigation; Clint and Kate didn’t need you on this case in the first place, and they certainly don’t need you now that they know-_ -

“No deal,” Clint said, shoving back from the table so hard his chair tipped over. He didn’t bother to pick it up. “C’mon, Nat, let’s go.”

_“Wh_ \--He doesn’t mean that,” Natasha said quickly, grabbing at Clint’s arm to prevent him from walking out the door. “Give us a minute.”

“We don’t need a minute,” Clint snapped. His eyes flashed when they met hers, startlingly blue in the dull light. Whatever he saw in her eyes made his brows snap together. “Nat, you’re not _seriously_ considering this.”

“You need that information to finish the investigation,” Natasha argued, wishing they had some privacy so that they weren’t putting on a show from the clearly amused mob woman. “If this is the way you get it, then--then it’s fine.”

“It's _not_ fine!” Clint nearly shouted, heedless of their audience. _“Jesus,_ Natasha, you're a person, not a fucking product to be bartered. And I know I'm not in the position to say what you can or can't do, especially when I’ve been…” He trailed off, deflated and a bit sheepish, but when his eyes came back to hers, they were steady and concerned. “I mean, okay, I’ve been kind of a dick. But is this really what you want? Did you really leave, and build this new life for yourself, just to turn around and crawl back to Ivan; and not even because you need him, or because you _failed,_ but just to make _her_ life easier?”

“Well…” No, obviously, that had never been her plan, and when he put it that way, it was an even shittier outlook than she’d first considered; but-- “But what about the intel?”

Clint gestured dismissively. “Probably false, or useless, or incomplete. _Definitely_ not worth it, even if it’s one hundred percent true.” A small, bright smile, completely out of place in this dingy room, lit up his face. “We can do this without her. I promise.”

“This is all very sweet,” Madame Masque drawled from her shadowed corner, “But I have other engagements this evening. Do we have a deal, Natalia?”

Natasha thought of Ivan, of his blood colored tracksuit and the cruel curve of his favorite knife to threaten her with; of the compact closet she’d slept in when she didn’t win the night’s take and of the sneering disdain every Red Room member was encouraged to hold for each other. She thought of the phonebooth of an apartment that was _hers,_ all hers, with art on the walls and copper pots stacked in the windowsill; of Fury’s gruff kindness and Maria’s deadpan humor and Clint and Kate drilling dart after dart into a dusty bar bullseye. Could she walk away from that?

“We do not,” Natasha said, delicately pushing back from the table and standing. Her knees rattled and she was positive that even those three short words had been unsteady as well, but she pushed confidence into her bloodstream and continued, “But we appreciate your time, Madame Masque.”

The other woman’s mouth curled down. “Disappointing.” She sighed a little in displeasure and rose, flicking her hand in obvious dismissal. “Alexi will show you out.” Clint had one hand on the doorknob and the other at Natasha’s back when Madame Masque, now entirely one with the shadows, murmured, “Take care now, little spider.”

“That wasn’t ominous at all,” Clint muttered in her ear as they followed the same surly youth back out of the labyrinth. “I feeI like I just got cursed by a witch--”

_“Barton--”_

“--Quick, do the sign of the cross before I break out into boils--”

Natasha dug her elbow into his side and he shut up until their guide opened the warehouse’s front door and unceremoniously shoved them out into a pool of sputtering fluorescent light in the otherwise blacked out docks. The sun had fully set while they’d been inside, fall’s early darkness descending into the valleys between the skyscrapers and tenements in the distance. As they stood on the warehouse threshold, momentarily aimless as the Navy Yard high beams crisscrossed into the sky, Natasha listened for the soothing slap of the East River against the cement dock posts below them, and for the night shifters jingling the change in their pockets. She could hear the water and its endless crash, but the workers--

“So I feel like I should apologize,” Clint began, hand scrubbing back into his hair. “Like, with extra groveling, and maybe an entire night of drinks on me--”

“Shut up,” Natasha said, listening hard at the nothing she heard between the wind.

“I--okay, I know you’re still mad at me, but _please,_ I feel--”

“Shut up,” she repeated, an insistent whisper now, and this time she yanked on his arm until he fell into step behind her. “It’s time to go. Dinner, or something, but we’ve got to leave, right now.”

Either he finally heard it, too, or just picked up on the spikes of cold anxiety in her voice, because Clint grabbed her shoulder. “Nat, _what’s going on?”_

Or, at least, he started to; but somewhere between _what’s_ and _going,_ a large hand came out of the darkness behind him and yanked him roughly backwards out of the light. Before she could scream or run, before the knife in her boot could find its way into her hand, Clint’s place in the light was taken by a woman; not Madame Masque, but younger than Natasha, blonde and wintry and hardened, and wearing a red tracksuit.

“Natalia,” she said, barely audible over the roar of blood in Natasha’s ears, “I think it’s time you and I had a conversation.”


	8. Chapter 8

“And you are…?” Natasha asked, more than done with strangers who seemed to know entirely too much about her. The girl in front of her was Kate’s age, finely boned and lithe as a ballerina, and Natasha was positive they’d never met.

“Yelena Belova,” the girl replied with a smirk. “But you can call me the Black Widow.” She was clearly expecting some sort of explosive response from Natasha, so when none came she prodded, “I’m your _replacement,_ hand-picked by Ivan himself.”

“How nice for you,” Natasha said coolly. “Now, if you don’t mind, my partner and I are on our way to dinner--”

“--Yeah, I’m hungry,” Clint chimed in from the darkness.

“Shut up,” Yelena snapped over her shoulder in his direction before regaining her poise and turning back to Natasha. “Your dinner will have to wait until our business is done.”

Natasha shifted her weight. “We _have_ no business,” she said, taking extra care to keep her words even despite the impatience fizzling in her veins. “We just met.”

“Oh, but we _do,”_ Yelena insisted, eyes sharp. “Madame Masque made you a generous offer that you appear to have turned down. Ivan suspected you might do that,” she added smugly, as if Ivan had some mystic insight into Natasha’s psyche instead a mere basic understanding of the human need for freedom. “He asked _me_ to make sure that you made the right choice.”

_If this is the best you can do, Ivan, then you’re seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel._ There might have been a telltale hourglass stitched into her jacket, but Natasha didn’t think she was being egotistical to find Yelena a poor successor to the Black Widow’s mantle. She was young, twitchy and undisciplined, with tells visible the next borough over. It was a rookie mistake to boast about her importance to Ivan: in the event that Natasha and Clint came out on top of this confrontation, she’d be the first one they’d take as a bargaining chip. And _oh_ , it was almost laughable to know how little Ivan cared about this girl.

Almost.

“Look,” Natasha sighed, trying to hold together the fraying ends of her patience, “I get it; really, I do. I was young once, and when Ivan singled me out it was the greatest feeling in the world. The jacket, the leadership, the cut of the night’s take. It’s _intoxicating,_ isn’t it?” She sidled closer and let her voice drop, trying to get the light out of her eyes and see how many goons were holding Clint. “But Ivan isn’t nice when you mess up, is he? And even when you think you’ve done your best, it’s never enough, and he always wants _more._ Why aren’t you enough the way you are? Why do you have to be more like _me?”_

The corners of Yelena’s eyes tightened, as if maybe this very line of questioning crept through her subconscious every night. Natasha recognized her moment to strike: “You think Ivan is intoxicating, but he’s really just _toxic._ I can offer you another path, Yelena, because I had other options, and so do you, if you want them. You don’t have to live this life.”

For one silver moment, Natasha waited, and their breath puffed between them in delicate clouds. Then the moment broke and Yelena spoke. “You’re right,” she said, every word deliberate. “I don’t _have_ to live this life. I _choose_ to.”

Somehow, despite this declaration of intent, Natasha was still caught off guard when the blonde flew her way in attack. She dodged one fist, but the second caught the center of her face and she staggered back, swiping at her now bloody nose. “Fuck,” she gasped, _“Shit,_ alright, you can have the stupid name.”

“I don’t need your _permission,_ you--” Yelena sneered, but the end to that assuredly lackluster insult got broken off into the night as Natasha put her head down and charged. It certainly wasn’t the most elegant move, and she was positive that she heard Clint’s shout of laughter somewhere to her left; but now that she had Yelena on the ground, her recruits seemed to realize that negotiations were over, and Clint’s laugh quickly turned into a yelp.

“Call them off,” Natasha ordered, knee on her captive’s throat, “Call them off _now,”_ but she only had one hand on Yelena because she was blindly searching for the knife in her boot, and when Clint yelled again Yelena took advantage of her distraction and rolled away, coming up from the ground with a blade that flashed in the light.

“She’s got a knife!” Clint yelled, and considering he seemed to be holding his own against a pair of Yelena’s recruits, it was impressive that he noticed anything the two women did.

_Me, too._ Natasha’s hand finally closed around the folded butterfly knife pressed against her calf, and she swung her blade out with practiced ease as she stood. She and Yelena glared at each other for a few bruising heartbeats, sizing each other up the way they’d both been trained: _where is their weight? Which way do their eyes dart? What do they protect?_ They circled once, twice, three times, each revolution contracting until they were too close to do anything else but engage.

“Ivan would never approve of such an ungraceful move,” Yelena spat as they slashed widely at each other and stepped back. “A bull rush. How clumsy.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Natasha needled, and Yelena flushed, furious red splotches climbing up her neck and cheeks. She attacked again, a wild and reckless flurry of slices, and Natasha hoped that Clint could hold up by himself, because this was going to take her entire concentration.

It was a well matched dance, with Yelena’s advantages being youthful speed and Natasha’s being years of experience. She lunged forward, the tip of her knife aiming for Yelena’s shoulder; but she only managed to rip part of the thick scarlet fabric before the younger woman danced away. Her next effort aimed low, a harsh swing towards the midsection that had Yelena hissing in pain, and she immediately paid for it when Yelena’s knife came flashing back to slide through her leather jacket-- _my favorite fucking jacket_ \--and draw out a line of blood across her upper arm.

It was call and response from there: Natasha would strike out and Yelena would retaliate, trying but never quite succeeding in gaining the upper hand. She’d be great someday, that much was obvious, and the damage she was dealing was definitely going to hurt once the adrenaline and blood washed down the drain; but tonight the blonde was too focused on her own fight to hear that Clint was whooping victoriously more and more often, and too busy trying to defend Natasha’s next jab to recognize that she was being herded--until it was too late.

The warehouse rose out of the East River, and Natasha had slashed and stabbed with increasing range until Yelena was boxed into a corner where the warehouse’s cement cornerstone met the water. The next time the girl darted forward and added another blossoming bruise to Natasha’s shoulder, her retreat caught her heel on the raised wooden curb of the dock and she pinwheeled her arms to avoid falling into the murky water.

With her knife still outstretched in one bloodslicked hand, Natasha caught Yelena’s wrist with the other. The girl tried to jerk away, nearly falling in the process, and the look she hurled at Natasha as she realized her predicament was a fusion of fear and defeat and raw, cold hatred.

“I could protect you,” Natasha offered, maybe almost begged, because she could _save_ this girl if only she’d listen. “I can make sure that Ivan never finds you. _Please.”_

Yelena blinked slowly, confused and heartbreakingly young for that millisecond; but then her face was once again hard, older and wearier than her years. “You’re pathetic,” she sniffed, squinting across the water with an air of expectation. “No wonder he waited so long to come after you. But he’ll be here soon enough--”

_Fuck._ “Clint!” Natasha yelled over her shoulder, “Company’s coming!” Yelena was still smirking as if she had won this match, and as much as Natasha wanted to inform her that she had lost on basically every level of this battle, she just didn’t have the time. It took only a half second’s hesitation before she swiftly lifted her foot and kicked Yelena into the black deep. She waited until the girl surfaced, spluttering obscenities in English and Russian alike, before turning and looking for Clint.

She didn’t have to look far: while she’d confronted Yelena, he’d dragged his two unconscious goons into the alcove of the warehouse entrance, and was currently trying to use the glass panel in the door to inspect his injuries. As she drew closer, she inventoried the damage: various cuts and scrapes along his arms and legs, a gash across his nose that oozed sluggishly and an eye that’d probably be purple come morning. “Reinforcements are coming, probably by boat. We need to get out of here.”

He turned and grinned, looking charmingly roguish against all logic and reason: _it should be illegal to look that good after a fight._ “Your place or mine, honey?” he drawled, apparently unconcerned about the fact that they’d just been jumped on a shady dock.

Natasha rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the arm. “I cannot _believe,”_ she said as they slipped down the dark wooden planks, the thrum of approaching motorboats hurrying their footsteps as they melted into the shadows, “That you’re flirting with me at a time like this. _Un_ believable…”

 

In the state they were in, the subway was out of the question: the anemic lights and the stares they’d attract would make it easy for Ivan to track them. Instead, they occupied every puddle of shadow they could find, taking over an hour to pick their way from Vinegar Hill and across Fort Greene to Bed-Stuy. Sunday nights were quiet in Clint’s little neighborhood, and he led her up the stairs in a zig-zag path to avoid the spots on the old staircase that tended to creak. He leaned heavily against his doorframe for a moment before finally getting the key into the lock, and wearily passed a hand over a scrape in his shoulder as the door swung inward.

“You should probably let me look at that,” Natasha said as she stepped on her bootheels to get them off.

“In a minute,” Clint said easily, wandering into the kitchen and sticking his head into cabinets. He finally resurfaced with a tall bottle of cheap vodka, which he proceeded to splash liberally into two short glasses before sliding one across the bar. “I think we both deserve a drink first.”

Truer words, Natasha figured, had never been spoken. She accepted the offered glass and tapped its rim against his with a quiet toast before throwing the entire drink back. Warmth spiraled down her throat to her stomach and she sighed as the adrenaline and anxiety at last began to release its pinching hold on her shoulders. Even if their constant doubling back hadn’t thrown their trail, Ivan and his pursuers wouldn’t enter Bed-Stuy. With luck, he’d decide Natasha simply wasn’t worth the effort and focus instead on molding Yelena into the perfect Black Widow. And the guilty part of her conscience, the part that kept a tally of her sins and the ways to repay them thought, _maybe I can go back for her some other time._

But that would be somewhere in the far-off future, and meanwhile Clint had wandered up the stairs to his loft and taken the vodka with him. His apartment was different at night, the open room draped in golden light and warm purple shadows, and Natasha took her time exploring this new layer before coming to a halt at the foot of the stairs. “Clint?”

His response was muffled, but it sounded vaguely like “Come on up,” so she snagged her glass and climbed the steps. Lucky was sprawled at the landing, clearly his preferred guard dog position, but he let Natasha step over him once she ran her hands through his fur a few times. Straightening, she took stock of the exposed brick, stainless steel railing, and solid wood furniture that rounded out the unfinished room. There was a worn pillow on the floor for Lucky, an end table that held a lamp as well as the vodka, and a bed that Clint was currently half under.

“Looking for this,” he explained as he wiggled back out, banging his head only once as he stood and showed Natasha a scuffed and battered first aid kit. “As you can tell, it got a lot of use when we were fighting for this place. Ready?”

_Ready for what?_ But then he reached back and pulled his t-shirt off by the neck and Natasha remembered the slash on his shoulder that probably needed stitches--and also his ridiculous underwear model physique. She took a steadying breath in the face of his tanned skin and defined muscles; when that didn’t stop the urge to reach out and run a hand down his chest, she reached for the vodka and pretended the gulp she took was pre-surgical nerves.

When she turned back, he’d seated himself on the foot locker that sat at the bottom of his bed and popped open the first aid kit. “Not a lot in here,” he said ruefully, picking through the band-aids and bandage ends. “And I don’t have rubbing alcohol or anything; hence--” He gestured at the bottle still clutched in her hands with half a grin, then rolled his head to try to see his injury. “Does it look bad?”

_There’s no way he knows the kind of effect he has,_ she told herself. And even if he did, he still needed to be stitched up; so she drew closer, handed him the vodka, and tried not to flush at the way his skin felt beneath her light touch. “You definitely need stitches,” she confirmed, “but only a few. Here--pour some of that on something.” Clint yanked an old shirt out from the foot locker and doused it in vodka before handing it over. “Have a drink,” she warned, “This will sting.”

To his credit, he only hissed a little as she wiped down his shoulder, and had resorted to gritting his teeth by the time she finished carefully looping a vodka-sterilized needle and thread through his skin. The quiet was comfortable as she cleaned the scrapes on his arms and face, and she was pressing a band-aid across his eyebrow when he suddenly blurted, “I really am sorry, you know.”

“About…?” Natasha asked distractedly, still wrapped up in her task.

Seated as he was, he had to look up to meet her eyes, and his sandy lashes dipped a few times as he blinked in the paltry light. “When we were leaving the warehouse, before we got jumped I--I was trying to apologize.” He reached up and gently took each of her hands from where they were now smoothing a butterfly bandage over the bridge of his nose. “It’s one thing to be surprised about your background, because it _is_ surprising; but it takes a lot to reveal something like that, and I was a jerk about it.” He squeezed her hands, thumbs stroking the backs of her palms. “Your strength alone makes you incredible, even without your multiple other talents; which, I mean, I’m sure you already know, but I’m, um--I’m sorry I didn’t recognize that sooner.”

“It’s okay,” Natasha said. The shadows fell perfectly on the planes of his face and she wanted to kiss the sadness from the downward turn of his lips, but settled instead for a forgiving smile and saying, “You can make it up to me by buying me lunch all week. And maybe paying off my tab next weekend. And _maybe_ \--”

Clint grinned, relief dancing in his eyes. “Yeah, alright, I get it.” He dropped her hands and grabbed her waist instead, pushing her back a few steps so he could stand. “C’mon, take off the jacket so I can check your shoulder.”

“Hm?” His fingers had brushed the soft skin under the hem of her t-shirt and she could still feel their warmth.

“The jacket, Romanoff,” Clint said impatiently, too close and pulling at the sleeve. “You’ve got a slice a mile long, let me take a look.”

“Oh. Right.” She shrugged off her beloved leather jacket, wincing at its appearance as well as at the tug of bruised muscles used to get it off. _You can do this,_ she determinedly told herself as she sat and Clint tugged at the sleeve of her t-shirt, rough fingers sweeping heat into every nerve ending as he inspected the cut that ran down her arm. _You can get through this without throwing yourself at him, or spontaneously combusting, or_ \--

“This isn’t going to work,” Clint said, breaking into her train of thought. His brow was folded in concentrated concern. “It looks bad, but I can’t see the whole thing. Take your shirt off.”

“I--” _Shit. Fuck. Never mind. You can’t do this._

“Do you want me to look at your injuries or not?” Clint asked patiently, all clinical and apparently not affected by the hormones that were rampaging through her own system. “This might not be that bad, but I can’t tell.”

“I--okay, fine.” The shirt was ruined, anyway; she could just borrow one from him and go home and think about him in the shower or something, since clearly her pants were the only ones on fire here. Clint’s eyes slid right over the black lace of her bra and honed in on her shoulder, which turned out not to need stitches after all. There was an area on her rib just ripening into a bruise, and a collection of minor scrapes and scratches that he swabbed with antibacterial ointment. And his touch was so gentle as he checked her over, and Natasha was _dying,_ entirely and absolutely on fire; but then--

“Um,” Clint said, confident hands suddenly unsure as they hovered over her chest, “Is everything in this area… uh, I mean, is it okay? Do you need me to, uh,” he cleared his throat and tried again: “Anything wrong?”

Aside from the way her heart was thumping loud, and hard: “No,” she told him with a slight shake of her head.

“Okay,” he said, “That’s good.” But his hands didn’t move, and his eyes traveled away from her face and down her skin without the detached analysis from before, and Natasha felt curls of pink rising up her neck. He at last looked back up at her, blue eyes darkening like a coming storm, and his voice was deep and scratchy in the best possible way. “Did you know that your eyes are, like, _really_ green?”

_Um…_ “Yes?”

Clint ducked his head in a huff of self-deprecating laughter. “Right, duh, but just-- _god,_ you’re gorgeous.” He looked down at his hands before looking at her again, crooked nose brushing hers. “Nat, just--can I--”

_“Yes,”_ she cut him off, “Please, definitely, yes--” His hands closed around her waist, his thumbs stroking cautiously along her bottom ribs, and then his lips were on hers, warm and firm and exhilarating. Natasha had never thought she was the type of woman to do this, but she melted just a little in his arms, with a sigh that invited Clint to knit his fingers into her hair and deepen the kiss. Now she could finally-- _finally_ \--let her fingers explore that golden skin and those unbelievable muscles, and he hummed appreciatively into her mouth when she traced the arrow inside his arm. His hands became less cautious, spreading sublime heat racing across her skin; his teeth scraped gently down to her clavicle and she could _feel_ his grin against her skin when she shivered.

“You know--” she tried to begin as his hands brushed the underside of her breasts, _“God,_ okay, but this is--this is probably unprofessional, right?”

“Oh, totally,” Clint said somewhere around her sternum, dropping to his knees so that he could kiss a continuous line down to her navel. He looked up at her and grinned, incorrigible and adorable and just so goddamn _glorious,_ and Natasha knew that this was capital-T Trouble. “That’s at least half of why this is so fun, right?”

“At _least,”_ she teased back, striping her fingers through his hair before letting him pull her down into his lap with a kiss; and if that led her hands sliding down the zipper of his jeans and his nimble fingers pushing at her bra clasp, and if _that_ led to an entire evening of wholly unprofessional activities, well, that would just stay between the two of them.


	9. Chapter 9

For better or for worse, the click of a door unlocking woke Natasha up faster than any alarm could. She resisted the urge to catapult out of bed; instead she kept her eyes closed and just listened, taking in the scrape of feet across the floor and fabric against doorframes. Everything was off: the door didn’t sound as far away as it should, and the intruder didn’t seem remotely cautious… And now that she thought about it, the sheets were scratchy and this pillow was much softer than usual, and the light that was dappling the lids of her eyes was entirely wrong.

Then she felt a warm hand on her hip and remembered. This was Clint’s apartment in the morning, and arriving there for an early meeting was significantly different than waking up there with Clint’s skin pressed deliciously against hers and his nose nestled just behind her ear. At some point after they’d pulled themselves off the floor but before they’d dragged each other to the bed, Natasha had had the forethought to text Pepper. _Injured while investigating lead,_ she’d typed while Clint’s hands did their best to distract her. _Will be in after lunch if at all._ _Update in the am._ She’d let Clint toss his phone and hers both across the room before they dove into bed, laughing about having the morning off for more enjoyable uses of time.

And this was glorious, a truly divine way to start a Monday; but there was someone downstairs and Natasha’s entire body was one raw nerve. “Hey,” she whispered, trying not to let the edge into her voice, “Wake up. Something’s going on.”

Clint yawned, eyelashes tickling her ear as he blinked blearily. “What do you mean?” he asked in a rough whisper. “What’s going--”

They both froze as they heard the voice float up from the kitchen. “So yeah, this is Clint’s place. Kitchen, living room, bathroom, dog,” the voice said, before devolving into enthusiastically greeting Lucky, whose joyful barks solidified Natasha’s dread.

_“Kate,”_ Clint whispered, and she jerked a nod; but _why_ and _why now_ and _why am I naked?_

“Someone’s with her,” Natasha breathed, listening to the way Kate was pointing out various features of the room and sharing, at this point, a story about Clint defending the building from Ivan while stark naked. Something about the vengeful expression that marched across his face made Natasha suspect that this wasn’t necessarily a story he wanted a total stranger to hear about him; but she couldn’t resist asking: “Did you really do that?”

“Yes,” he hissed, “And while I looked great doing it, I’m going to fucking murder her.” But he stayed where he was, breathing quietly for a moment before adding, “Not right now, though. If we don’t move, she won’t know we’re here.”

There was a major flaw in the “maybe she won’t come up here” plan; namely, that maybe she _would,_ but Natasha had no better suggestion, so they held themselves stiffly in place and listened to Kate search her way through Clint’s living room while Lucky and the unidentified companion trailed after her. It sounded like Kate’s friend was a woman, possibly Hispanic based on the slight accent that warmed her words, and, considering the the fond exasperation that lightened her tone: “Does Kate have a girlfriend?” Natasha mouthed in Clint’s direction.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged back, because of course he didn’t know. _Useless._ But his plan of inaction, at least, seemed to be working: Kate hadn’t seemed to find whatever she was looking for, but nor had she come stomping up the stairs, and now her girlfriend seemed to be trying to shepherd her out the door. “Success,” Clint whispered with a grin, eyes bright in victory as he leaned in to kiss her, and Natasha was grinning back when--

_Private eyes! (CLAP) They’re watching you! (CLAP CLAP) They see your every move!_

The song was coming from the corner where Clint had thrown their phones the night before. From downstairs, they heard a duet of “What the fuck?” from Kate and her mystery girlfriend, and Natasha sat up with a full-force glare at Clint.

“Barton,” she sighed, and he looked so sheepish that she couldn’t be that mad even though Kate’s footsteps were once again making their way through the apartment. “Why, of all songs, is _that_ your ringtone?”

“It’s only when Kate calls,” he explained, still whispering as if they weren’t completely blown. “And, hold on: what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means this song is _stupid,”_ Natasha snapped.

“This song is _stupid?”_ Clint shot upright and gasped as if she’d just confessed to cannibalism. “This _song_ is Hall  & Oates! This _song_ is a classic! This _song_ is the reason I became a private detective!”

“This song isn’t even _about_ private detectives!”

“Clint!” It was Kate’s voice rising up the stairs. “Why the fuck aren’t you at work, and if _you’re_ not at work, then why the fuck am _I_ working, and _why_ \--” She had stormed across the loft and had one hand firmly wrapped in the sheets before her eyes managed to look at anything other than Clint. “Oh,” she said abruptly, and Natasha realized that, if she’d missed the boots kicked off under the coat rack, Kate would have had no reason to expect that anyone other than Clint was up in the loft. “Natasha?” She looked around the room, eyes flicking from the tangle of discarded clothes on the floor to the vodka bottle left sideways and empty on the floor and then back to the bed, where Natasha was trying very hard not to exist. _“Oh.”_

Natasha would have been thrilled if hell had chosen that moment to rise up around the entire tenement and swallowed them all whole. Unfortunately, it seemed as if Satan had other plans that day, so instead there was just Kate’s mouth moving wordlessly as she slowly unclenched the sheet in her hand. “I’ll just be downstairs,” she finally squeaked before pointing down the stairs and scurrying away, and at least it was less snarky than Natasha had been bracing for.

“That went well,” she informed Clint. _Maybe if I hold this pillow over my face, and stay still enough, I will turn into stone and never have to look Kate in the eye ever again._ It wasn’t that Natasha was ashamed to have slept with Clint, because the night had been, in an understatement, fantastic. Still, she hadn’t exactly intended to advertise this fact, and certainly not the literal morning after, and _definitely_ not while naked. “No, wait, I meant: that was a disaster.”

Clint winced and scratched the back of his head. “Not my best work,” he agreed, swinging his legs off the mattress. “Sorry.” His arm muscles flexed and the streaming sun caught his hair just right and it was just _unfair._

“Maybe next time we should do this at my place,” Natasha said, because that purple arrow inside his arm apparently did crazy things to her brain. _Maybe if I get out of bed now and put my pants on he won’t notice that I just said that._ She busied herself with turning her jeans right side out so that he wouldn’t see the blush she felt creeping up her cheeks.

“Yeah?” She turned at the hopeful note in his voice and found Clint frozen in the process of pulling on his pants, precariously balanced on one foot. “Really?”

“Uh, _yeah,”_ Natasha said, because, again: _fantastic,_ and she liked him pretty well even when he was dressed. “And Maria never shows up uninvited.”

“Okay,” Clint said, ducking his head and seemingly unable to keep a grin off his face as they finished dressing. “Okay.” The stupid grin stayed even as they slunk down the stairs to Kate, who seemed to have reclaimed some of her moxie now that she wasn’t faced with the blatant evidence of the night before. She lounged against the counter, chatting quietly with a girl of similar age, with thickly curling black hair and truly fierce eyebrows.

“America,” Kate said to her companion in introduction as they approached, “meet my mentor, Clint ‘Always Naked’ Barton and our friend slash coworker, Natasha ‘Totally Badass’ Romanoff.” _Huh,_ Natasha mused as Clint predictably squawked in outrage. _That America-themed party makes much more sense now._ She stuck her hand out and said something vaguely polite under the gentle squabble that was Clint and Kate, which had quickly turned into an interrogation: “And _why_ are you here, and since _when_ are you two even speaking to each other, and _what the hell happened to your face?”_

“The meeting with Whitney Frost didn’t go that well,” Natasha summarized.

“Because she’s _crazy,”_ Clint threw from across the room, where he was slapping a bag of frozen peas over his shoulder. “She tried to make Natasha go back to the Red Room in exchange for intel, which: no. So we didn’t get anything, and then some of the _actual_ Red Room showed up, and Natasha got into a knife fight with this girl and I fought off two other guys, and then we had to run before Ivan showed up; so we came back here and had a drink and--”

“And now we’re wondering why _you’re_ here,” Natasha smoothly cut in before Clint could ramble through a play-by-play of the previous night. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the office?”

“Maybe,” Kate said, scuffing her foot against the floor. “I mean, yeah. But I was _bored,_ because all the girlfriends are nailed down, except for Whitney, who apparently is now a dead end, too; and then America stopped by--”

“Don’t blame this on me, princess,” America quickly put in.

“--Fine, so I _asked_ America to stop by and keep me company; but then Maria kinda caught us making out in the supply closet and kicked us out of the office, so I thought I’d come by and see if there were any extra files here that might give me something to go on.”

“And so you could make out on my couch,” Clint surmised with a resigned lift to his eyebrows.

Kate wrinkled her nose. “Your place is disgusting,” she informed him. “I don’t know how you get women to come here, present company included.” Natasha didn’t think it was that bad, but evidently Kate’s wealthy upbringing granted her a different set of standards. “But no; I figured I’d take another crack at Morley.”

Natasha and Clint traded confused looks. “Morley’s accounted for,” she reminded Kate, who looked nonplussed and Natasha couldn’t figure out why, until… _Oh, right._ That had been Friday night, after the bar and before her big mouth had gotten her in trouble, and the rest of the weekend had rolled downhill faster than she could control. Clint hadn’t told his protégé anything, and by the time Natasha had seen her on Saturday morning they’d been diving headfirst into Tony’s trauma.

She sighed and tried to rewind as quickly as possible. “Right. Okay, Friday. We left the bar, found Morley lying in wait at my apartment, and I sort of went Red Room on him when he got creepy; which was good because he told us everything he knew, but was bad because, well--” She shrugged a little to avoid recapping the entire drama. “Anyway. We already suspected that Morley wasn’t working alone, and he confirmed that whoever he’s working with has physical access to the R&D departments, so we know that they must work for Stark Industries in some capacity. Unfortunately, we thought Morley was the mastermind, and it seems as though he’s just the drudge. There’s someone else in charge, but he didn’t know who.”

“So let’s go through the security tapes,” Clint suggested. “Maybe they slipped up. And we can assume he was paid, right, so we can run financials while we’re at it.” He looked at Natasha, a blazing resolution in his eyes that, if she was being honest, was sort of a turn-on. “Call Pepper and tell her you’re not coming in today: we’re going to crack this case wide open.”

 

“I spoke too soon,” Clint groaned as they entered their second hour of clicking through security film. “The only thing that’s cracking here is my back. This chair sucks.” He leaned back to demonstrate and nearly tipped over.

After making a pit stop at the local bakery for Clint’s favorite donut bacon sandwich, they’d arrived at SHIELD in a blaze of enthusiasm and glory, prepared to zip their way through the footage Pepper had provided, pluck Morley’s employer from the grainy feed and serve them up on a shiny platter. Reality, though, was less kind: there were stacks of footage spanning the previous six months, and even narrowing their search down to the comings and goings around Morley’s broom closet still left them with a day’s worth of viewing.

“Don’t hate on the chair,” Natasha said distractedly from the armchair across her office, nose buried in John Morley’s employment file. There had to be something in the contents of this folder, something she’d missed or skipped over or disregarded at first light, that could now be the lynchpin in their investigation. She’d already flipped through the voluminous file once: Morley had worked with the company for some time, and his various run-ins with HR made for particularly hefty reading.

“I’m hating,” Clint grumbled into his coffee. “I hate this chair and these videos and also Tony, because if he didn’t let his stupid company get hacked then I wouldn’t have to be doing this.”

“You also wouldn’t get paid,” Natasha reminded him, “And you wouldn’t--” _And you wouldn’t have met me,_ she almost said (because she was much sappier than she’d ever admit) and she was grateful that Kate knocked on the door right then.

“I found something,” Kate said, an eagerness in her eyes that she could only barely rein in. “Or, at least, I think so. Come and see.”

As one, Clint and Natasha scrambled to their feet and followed Kate across the SHIELD office to Maria’s area, which they’d commandeered while she was out dragging Creel, who she'd finally nabbed, into court. The junior detective had twenty separate internet windows open on Maria’s computer, each documenting a separate bank account or company. In the forefront was John Morley’s Big Apple Credit Union account summary.

“I noticed that a specific amount gets deposited in Morley’s account every month,” Kate explained, bouncing on her toes, “See? Here, and here and here, too. They go back for more than six months, and there’s even one right around the time of Hammer International’s announcement.”

“But they’re all from different companies,” Clint pointed out, scrolling through one company’s website. “Any or all of these could be legitimate contracted work he does outside of his Stark responsibilities, like web design or whatever. It's breach of contract but, I don't think that would stop him.”

“They could be,” Kate agreed, “And that's what I thought at first, but the numbers were just too similar and it was bugging me, so I looked into all these different companies. Look.” She clicked through a few of the open windows, naming each in turn: “Chessmen Enterprises, Tartarus Incorporated, The Iron Monger Corporation…”

Kate trailed off, looking from Natasha to Clint expectantly; and the names _were_ familiar to Natasha, were reaching grasping hands to snag at her memory. She thought hard, trying to stretch her synapses until they made the connection, but again and again she came up blank. Frustrated, she shook her head. “All of those names ring a bell, but I can’t remember why.”

Instead of answering, Kate pulled up a scan of an old Stark Industries document. It had clearly been digitally scanned decades before, and the image was grainy and hard to parse. Still, Natasha could clearly make out the art deco corporate logo favored by Tony’s father, as well as the date: 1963. The memo line indicated that this was a list of subsidiary accounts and companies Stark Industries had made in a recent business acquisition. Each of the companies Kate had listed were printed there in a serif typewriter font, and she grimly pointed to the line of text at the bottom of the document.

“‘Properties acquired in 1963 from…’” Clint read off, then blanched. Betrayal and disbelief mingled on his face. “Holy shit. ‘Properties acquired from Stane International.’”


	10. Chapter 10

Saying that the subway ride up to Stark Tower was tense was like saying that Mount Everest was merely a big hill, or the Nile just a winding creek. Tension radiated from the three detectives, twanging so tangibly into the post-lunch rush that they were granted a wide berth in the crushing crowd. Kate clutched a folder to her chest, toying with the attached USB that held all their evidence. Her eyes darted again and again to Clint, who was plainly glowering. A storm cloud seemed to hover above him, with the subway’s fluorescent lights casting his face in the sharp lines of lightning instead of the usual sunshine glow.

He glanced occasionally at Natasha, who could feel her back teeth grinding in nervous anticipation as they made their way to Grand Central station. There had been grim defeat in Clint’s eyes as she’d called Pepper and informed the CEO that they were coming to the office with a case update. There was no polite way to say “I told you so,” and besides, the victory felt hollow: Giuletta Nefaria or John Morley would both have been more satisfactory to take down. For all that she’d pushed against Clint’s defense of Stane, Natasha had to admit that this revelation was going to devastate Tony, and she was the one who had to deliver that crushing blow.

But this was the job she’d been hired to do, and she’d known from day one that there was a high chance of it ending like this. _At least it’s not Tony,_ she tried to tell herself when Pepper Potts met them in the lobby with a grim smile. _At least they won’t be leading the company’s namesake out in handcuffs._ It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought: Obadiah Stane, while not the face of the company, was a genial older man and a major pillar of Stark Industries, whose arrest would still require significant damage control for the company.

Pepper said as much when Clint reluctantly named Stane as their hacking culprit. “I hope you’re aware of just how serious this accusation is,” she said with steel cut balance to her voice. “This is Tony’s uncle we’re talking about here.”

“We know,” Natasha said quietly, motioning Kate forward to pull up all the evidence they’d found. “We wish our findings were different.” She fell silent to allow Kate to talk the CEO through the bank statements and records she’d brought. The only bright point in the gloom that rapidly descended upon the office was that the junior detective clearly knew her stuff: she was informative and gentle, never pushing Pepper to conclusions, but instead laying out the puzzle pieces and letting her connect them herself. “It might be time to promote Kate to full partner,” Natasha murmured to Clint as the other two spoke. He nodded, a spark of pride in his otherwise downcast eyes as Kate held her own under a few of Pepper’s rapid fire questions.

“Well,” the CEO said after a moment of solemn thought, “This sucks.” She had gone pale under her freckles, and her blue eyes were troubled as she picked up the phone on her desk and dialed. “Tony, Clint and Natasha are here with news. Can you come up here?” Her eyes flicked towards them for a brief moment before she neutrally added, “Swing by and pick up Obadiah on your way up here; I think he’ll want to hear this, too.”

The wait was interminable, with only the perpetual tick of the clock to remind Natasha that she hadn’t been sucked into some sort of timeless vacuum. Finally, _finally,_ she heard Tony’s voice echoing down the hall towards them. It sounded as if he and Obadiah were laughing, and Natasha was loath to be the one responsible for wiping that laughter off their faces. She braced herself as the frosted glass doors swung open, and noticed that Clint and Pepper each did the same: nobody was looking forward to this conversation.

As usual, Tony seemed oblivious to the mood in Pepper’s office. “What’s the scoop, Pep?” he asked with a clap of his hands. “Who’s getting a dose of the old Stark Industries legal team?” He winked at his uncle. “Whoever it is, I definitely don’t envy them.”

There was little worse that he could have said, and Natasha was grateful that Pepper finally broke the ensuing silence by inviting both men to have a seat. She waited until they were settled before beginning her explanation. “Clint, Natasha, and Kate, through the course of the investigation, have discovered that an employee in the data engineering department has been regularly accessing and downloading restricted and top secret information from the Research and Development department.”

Tony flashed a wolfish grin. “Great,” he said, “He’s fired. She’s fired? Whoever they are, they’re fired.” He looked over at Obadiah in satisfaction. “See, what’d I tell ya, Obie? Hiring these two was the best decision--”

“That’s not all,” Pepper interrupted, her voice a bit sharp. She closed her eyes and Natasha could see the other woman visibly try to pull herself together. “This employee, whose name is John Morley, was working with someone else--”

“So fire them, too,” Tony jumped in.

“--Someone who could not only grant him physical access to the R&D lab, but who also arranged regular exchanges of prototypes and schematics for the arc reactor and other technology.” Pepper paused and bit her lip, the only flaw in her otherwise perfectly blank expression. “As you know, only an executive can issue those kinds of permissions. Kate tracked the bank accounts from which Morley was paid, and… Oh, Tony, I’m so sorry--”

“It’s Obadiah, Tony,” Clint said to his hands when Pepper seemed incapable of continuing. He was unable to look his friend in the eye. “All the payments come from accounts and business once owned by Stane Enterprises.”

“No,” Tony said with an incredulous laugh, “You’re wrong. You’re _wrong,”_ he insisted when Pepper gave him a pleading look. “Check again. No offense, Kate, but you’re practically an infant and probably made a mistake. Tell them, Obie,” he said, turning to his mentor. “Tell them it’s not you.”

Natasha noticed that Obadiah Stane had been curiously quiet throughout this exchange. In her role as Natalie Rushman, she’d not often crossed paths with the man; but when she had, he’d been affable, talkative and kind. Despite her continued conviction that he was a strong candidate for the crime and that appearances often had little to do with actions or intent, it had been at times difficult to mesh the theory of Obadiah Stane, bitter and vengeful businessman, with Uncle Obie, who still occasionally called Tony “Tony Pepperoni” regardless of the younger man’s mortified objections that he was no longer seven years old.

Now his silence was strange, as was his complete lack of response. He’d appeared interested, even intrigued as Pepper unfolded the story of John Morley across her desk, with not a single flicker of recognition in his eyes as the hacker’s tale was recounted. This seemed odd to Natasha, who had expected, if nothing else, to see the micro expressions of guilt to squirm their way across his face; yet Stane seemed entirely at ease. It was only when Clint spelled out the connection to Stane Enterprises that he reacted, and this too unusual: splashes of realization, resignation, and regret crashed in his eyes, but Natasha read no obvious guilt.

And yet there was unspeakable sadness in the lines of his face, fathoms deeper than the Marianas trench. “I’m sorry, Pepperoni,” he said, setting a heavy hand on Tony’s knee.

Tony shoved it away. “Don’t call me that,” he snapped, “And don’t--don’t _do_ this, don’t admit to this! Obie, come on, it wasn’t--” His voice faltered and broke as Obadiah got slowly to his feet. Looking up at his mentor, eyes bright with angry tears refusing to fall, Natasha could just see what he’d looked like as a child: brilliant, petulant, hopeful, hurt. “Tell them it they’re wrong, Obie, please.”

“You should probably call security,” Obadiah said to Pepper. His head was bowed, and sorrow echoed in his voice. Kate’s face was set in a hard mask that seemed out of place on her youthful countenance; Clint’s brow was deeply furrowed as he clearly debated what to do about Tony, who was still arguing his case despite the fact that nobody was listening. Pepper tried to disguise the tremor in her hands by moving slowly towards the phone, as if perhaps giving Stane an opportunity to throw someone else under the bus. But he offered nobody up, just stood there and resolutely ignored Tony’s alternate yelling and pleading, and Pepper had no choice but to pick up the phone and dial.

“Security, please. I need an escort for Obadiah--”

 _“Wait.”_ Natasha’s hand shot forward of its own accord and pressed down the switch hook, ending Pepper’s conversation with the operator. Every other person in the room turned in synchronized confusion at her, but she narrowed her eyes and focused only on Obadiah Stane’s subdued frame. “Something’s not right.”

Dimly, she heard Tony mutter, “You’re damn right,” but she let that thought filter away, as she had bigger fish to fry. It just didn’t make _sense._ Effusive as Stane tended to be in everyday life, he somehow had nothing to say when caught red-handed, not even a simple confession. What’s more, the man had no registrable reaction to John Morley’s name, as if he had no idea who this person was. And then there was the fact, though completely inadmissible in a court of law, that the man appeared completely and totally defeated, without even a sliver of accomplishment sharpening his gaze. In Natasha’s experience, people caught with their hands in the cookie jar looked anywhere from sheepish to boastful, all paired with some level of pride or satisfaction in what they’d achieved. She’d never caught someone who looked so entirely sad.

An idea began to form, snaking through the folds of her brain. “Who else had access to those companies and their accounts?” she asked Stane. He pointedly slid his eyes away from hers and refused to answer. “You couldn’t possibly be the sole account manager,” Natasha continued, musing aloud even as the subject of her hypothesizing stared determinedly out the window. “Even though you’re perfectly capable of managing them all yourself, you would have granted access to someone else in case something ever happened to you. They’d have to be someone you trust, someone who you’d want to have controlling rights.”

the frown creasing Pepper’s forehead intensified. “Are you suggesting, _again,_ that Tony is our mastermind?” Icicles hung off her sentence and Natasha recognized that the ice she was skating on wasn’t going to hold up much longer.

“No, I--”

The office doors banged open and three men in Stark Industries security uniforms burst in. “Ms. Potts, are you alright?” one officer called even as they charged across the room. “We heard you ask for an escort for Mr. Stane, but the call was cut off, so we came to make sure you weren’t in any trouble.” He cast a glaring eye around the room, perhaps homing in on the antagonism that was currently radiating between each person in a hostile web.

The CEO sighed. “Thank you, Stan, but I’m fine. Now that you’re here, though, Mr. Stane requires an escort out of the building.” She looked at Natasha as if daring her to contradict this order; but without Stane’s cooperation or information, Natasha had nothing to go on. After a beat of silence, Pepper stood and said quietly, “Obadiah, you’ll be hearing from our lawyers shortly.” A security officer reached for each of Stane’s elbows to frog march him out of the building. A horrible lull fell as they made their slow way out, as by this point even Tony had fallen silent.

For the second time in the span of ten minutes, the office doors again slammed open. “Pepper! What’s this I hear about--” The man who’d just come storming into the office stopped short at the sight of Obadiah surrounded by security agents. He dove forward and roughly pulled the officers off, shouting, “Let go of him! Get off!” The men deferred to Pepper, who gave a slight nod; only then did they release their hold on the older man.

This seemed to make the newcomer even angrier. “What the fuck is this, Potts?” he barked, no respect for the CEO present in his tone. “Arresting my _father?_ This is complete bullshit, even coming from you.” Now that he’d been identified, Natasha could see the resemblance. The younger Stane had the same blue eyes and solid build as his father; on him, the blue was flinty and cold rather than jovial, and he threw his weight around like a man used to intimidating others with his size.

“Ezekiel,” Obadiah warned, a new shade of weariness in his eyes. “Show some respect.”

“Respect?” Ezekiel spat, _“Respect?_ You’re asking me to respect the bimbo who’s running this company into the ground? You’re asking me to _respect_ the bitch who just called security on you?” Without waiting for a response, he turned back to Pepper with a malicious scowl. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Potts? The man is seventy-five years old; what could he have possibly done?”

Natasha took too much satisfaction in the fact that, when Pepper straightened to her full height on those power heels she wore, she was taller than Obadiah’s son. “Corporate espionage,” the CEO said coolly, “Conspiracy to steal and trade company secrets. Now, if you’ll excuse me--”

“Corporate espionage?” Ezekiel repeated hotly. “Bullshit. My dad loves this company more than anyone else, okay, anyone. He would _never_ \--”

“But you would.” Everyone in the room froze, even the security guards who were still hovering in confusion. It took Natasha a moment, under a roomful of stares, to realize that the words had come from her mouth. Madame Masque’s coy words circled back through her brain: _an R &D executive who’s quite dissatisfied._ There was no way for Natasha to roll her words back up and unsay them, so she simply repeated, “You would. You obviously don’t have the same level of respect for this company that your father has. It would be no skin off your nose if Stark Industries crumbled and burned, would it?”

“Who the fuck is this?” Ezekiel asked nobody in particular, gesturing in Natasha’s direction. He waited for no answer, but turned on her, teeth bared as he hissed, “Listen, bitch, I don’t know who you think you are, but nobody throws baseless accusations at me and gets away with it.”

“It would make sense, though,” Pepper said slowly, breaking into the younger Stane’s threats. Her eyes were narrowed in thought as she made her way around the desk, and Natasha was again reminded of a tiger preparing to strike. “The younger Mr. Stane here is an executive in the R&D department. I’d say that means he has access to all of the technology and schematics that Hammer has managed to get his hands on.”

Ezekiel Stane’s face lost some color at the mention of Hammer’s name. Clint, perhaps noticing this, rose from his chair and added, “Motive is pretty clear, too. There’s clearly no love for you or how you run this company, Ms. Potts, and I bet we’d find that he’s not too fond of Tony, either.”

From the significant glance that passed between Obadiah and Tony, Natasha was positive they were on the right track. “Of course he’s not,” she agreed. “Tony has everything Ezekiel wants: money, power, his dad’s attention. Nothing he does ever seems to be more impressive than Tony’s newest creation. So when Hammer approaches him about selling company secrets, saying yes is the easiest thing in the world.” She turned to Ezekiel, who was gradually fading to an unappetizing shade of grey. “Which one did he offer you: money, power, or attention?”

He sneered, ugly and harsh. “All of the above. If I gave him what he wanted, he’d give me real company leadership, not the micromanaging bullshit I do here. And it wasn’t just for me.” He looked at his father, a plea in his eyes that made him look, for the briefest moment, like a child. “Hammer would have given both of us the kind of power we should have here; he was prepared to offer us an entire subsidiary company to run. You would have been the CEO, Dad, like you always should have been. We could have recreated the Stane empire that you lost all those years ago, Dad; we could have!”

This was all delivered directly towards Obadiah, whose face sagged and sagged as if age had suddenly been piled upon him. Now Natasha could see the guilt that had been missing before: a father’s guilt, shored up with years of perceived neglect and broken promises. As a whole, as if each person in the room was holding their breath in tandem, they waited for his answer.

“I’m sorry, son.” There were solitary tears slipping down the creases of Obadiah’s aged face. “I could never do that to this company.”

The silence was so loud that it roared, crashed, slammed into every corner of the office and rattled Natasha’s bones. And it roared and crashed and slammed for long, unending seconds until finally Ezekiel lashed out, a savagely hurt gleam covering the old hope in his eyes. “I knew you were a coward,” he snarled, “A fucking coward, too afraid to be anything other than Tony Stark’s lap dog. Well, fuck you, Dad, okay? Fuck you.” He turned and started for the door. “And as for the rest of you, you can’t prove anything, so you can fuck right off--”

“Actually?” The voice was timid and nervous, and it came from behind the desk. Kate, who all this time had kept herself solidly out of the conversation, now stood on shaky legs and turned the computer monitor around. The screen was filled with documentation from one of the companies that had sent payments to Morley. “It says right here that you and your father are the only account managers for Chessmen Enterprises. I’m willing to bet that the majority of the other companies you used are similarly configured. Assuming you father is willing to testify that these charges weren’t made by him, I’d say we have plenty of proof.”

Clint gave his apprentice a surreptitious thumbs up while Ezekiel stared at the monitor in horror. “But I--” he stuttered, “But-- _Dad_ \--” His quiet confused protests soon escalated to mild shouting as Pepper nodded for security to now escort the younger Stane to the door. Obadiah, after giving the room a solemn nod of goodbye, followed his son’s escort into the elevator.

“The papers will have a field day with this,” Pepper said presently, brushing at the skirt of her suit. “I’ll have to start making some calls immediately.” She lingered, though, hovering in Tony’s peripheral as though she wanted to comfort him but didn’t quite know how to go about it when surrounded by an audience. Natasha looked at Clint, who raised his eyebrows. Maybe there was some hope to Tony’s crush after all.

“We should get out of your hair, then,” Natasha said brightly. She stepped forward and shook Pepper’s hand. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Ms. Potts, though I’m sorry how this all ended.”

“It is what it is,” Pepper responded with a small shrug. “I’m just glad it wasn’t actually Obadiah after all.” She ignored Tony’s muttered, “I _told_ you so” and added, “I enjoyed working with you as well. You’ll be a difficult assistant to replace. I’ll be sure to give you a call next time I need an investigator. Or,” she added, hesitant, and Natasha paused and waited. “Or, maybe, if I just need a friend to have a drink with?”

“Absolutely,” Natasha said with a grin. “Any time.”

 

The names of both the elder and younger Stane were bold headlines in the newspaper on Fury’s desk the next day. He tapped it before pushing the pages across the table. “You did a good job, Romanoff,” he said, gruff but kind. “You should be proud of yourself. I’m certainly proud of you.”

Natasha smiled in spite of herself. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I guess I am?” It was pretty cool to have solved a case that was currently being blasted on every cable news channel, even if her name wasn’t attached to any of those reports.

“You _guess,”_ Fury said with a sniff. “Don’t be so modest.” He regarded her for a minute, and Natasha had the distinct impression that she was being sized up. She tried not squirm. At last, he sighed and pulled a manila folder out of a drawer. “You up for your next case?”

“I _guess,”_ Natasha teased, accepting the folder and flipping it open to find a photo of a smiling young man with a falcon perched on his shoulder, followed by sketches of various types of birds. “Um, sir?”

Fury grinned. “Remember my old friend Holt from the precinct? This is his nephew, Sam, and he’s an ornithologist at the Bronx Zoo…”

The rest of the details were too convoluted for her to go into as she recounted the story at the bar that night. It was busy, and they were all crammed into one booth: Kate and America draped over one another on one side, while Clint and Maria forced Natasha to be the one squished in the middle of their bench. She’d complained at first, but sitting in the middle meant that she was never responsible for going to the bar for another round, so she’d resigned herself to her fate.

“I love the zoo,” Kate said enthusiastically. “Can I work with you instead of Clint? All he’s doing next is helping this creepy pair of twins track down their dad. And,” she added with a dramatic sigh, “He smells.”

“I do not,” Clint said indignantly, “And they’re not creepy.” He finished his beer with a sigh. “C’mon, Katie-Kate, let’s play some darts. Loser buys next round.” He hopped out of the booth and Kate shortly followed, with the other three talking for a few more minutes before trailing along. As always, Kate and Clint drew a crowd, and Natasha was content to lean against the wall with America and Maria, sip her beer, and watch the pair work their magic.

The real magic, though, was afterwards, when Maria headed home and Kate dragged America off to meet some friends in Soho. Clint and Natasha remained, leaning against each other more than the wall while the bar’s lights cast shimmering patterns onto the dregs of their drinks. “You want to get out of here?” she murmured, fingers already tracing swirls in his hair. “I have good coffee, and my place is only a few blocks away.”

Clint’s sly smile was enough of an answer, but he took her hand, anyway, and kissed her in the shadows. “Honey,” he drawled as they walked out under the star-soaked sky, “I thought you’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked this universe, hopefully you'll check out the Maria/Steve Rogers sequel I'm working on that I hope to have up by the end of the year! A few notes:  
> -All of the potential suspects that our trio investigate are real villains/characters from Iron Man comics. John Morley is an alias for a hacker named Ghost, Ezekiel takes over for his father as Iron Monger, and Tony really did date Madame Masque!  
> -I obviously took some liberties with the Red Room to combine Natasha's background with some 616 Hawkeye canon.
> 
> Thanks so much for sticking with me all the way through! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it :) Feel free to stop by my [tumblr](http://www.quidnunc-life.tumblr.com) and say hi!


End file.
